


bruises, on both my knees for you

by eden22



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Happy ending though, M/M, Pool Boy AU, eventually, pool boy!mitch, rich!kyle, seduction! angst! revenge sex! we have it all here folks, the choices that were made here are... questionable, trophy husband!william
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-26 13:42:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 82,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22933951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eden22/pseuds/eden22
Summary: They were supposed to be happy, they were supposed to be in love. Instead, they were falling apart, day by day and bit by bit.And then along came the pool boy.
Relationships: Kyle Dubas/Mitch Marner, Kyle Dubas/William Nylander, Mitch Marner/William Nylander
Comments: 39
Kudos: 151





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> tysm to Mer for beta'ing this and helping to fix all my fucked up tenses

The boy had been recommended to them by the Andersens from down the street. He’d apparently worked for them the previous summer as well, and they had nothing but good things to say. Their last pool boy had quit unexpectedly, going off to explore the world or some nonsense, dropping out of school in favour of chasing whatever ridiculous dream had caught his imagination. So, they’d needed a new one, and Frederik had described his as polite, quiet, and reliable, which was good enough as far as Kyle was concerned. He’d asked Frederik to pass along his information, and a few days later was sat across from the boy in his study, watching as he looked curiously around the room, apparently unbothered by Kyle’s scrutiny. He was tall but skinny, with brown hair and a mouth that was a bit too large for his face. Kyle couldn’t quite tell if he had attempted to dress up for their meeting at all – his shoes were unscuffed but still just runners, his short sleeved button-up neatly done up but covered with a garish print that would be more at home covering the beer-belly of a middle aged white father on vacation, and his jeans, while obviously clean and relatively new, had rips at the knees. Though that, Kyle supposed, might have been more of a generational thing. William’s friends had shown a proclivity for the same style on the rare occasions that Kyle had interacted with them, after all.

The boy shifted slightly in his seat, indicating for the first time that he might be more conscious of the way Kyle was examining him than he had previously let on. Despite this, his face was still remarkably blank as he looked around the room. The lack of expression read as unnatural on his features though, his face seeming to be more suited to smiling than anything else, slipping into an easy grin when Kyle had first answered the door. Though he was no longer smiling, there seemed to be some ghost of that expression still flicking around the edges of his face, ready to re-emerge at the slightest provocation. Kyle had to admit that he was at least somewhat impressed by how relaxed the boy seemed to be. He knew how imposing the house could be, especially for someone who was not wealthy which this boy – he ran his eyes across his clothing again – clearly was not. Even William, as unflappable as he was, hadn’t been able to hide all of his awe the first time that Kyle had brought him home to the family estate. Kyle’s office in particular, with it’s dark paneling, shelves full of leather-bound first editions, painfully uncomfortable overstuffed antique velvet couch, and horribly large mahogany desk, was designed to intimidate and unsettle. He knew for a fact that Andersen’s house was about half the size of the building they currently sat in too, so it wasn’t a facet given to him via his other employer. No, the boy simply seemed to be comfortable despite the unfamiliar environment he found himself in, the only sign of possible nerves the way one of his legs hadn’t stopped shaking since he sat down. Nothing too obnoxious, thankfully, but still noticeable enough for Kyle to file it away with all of his other observations.

“So, you’re at school?” Kyle finally asked, not bothering to pick up the resume sitting on the desk in front of him. He remembered what it said anyways, short as it was. There had been enough typos to make him frown when he’d first read it, but it wasn’t like he needed the boy to be some sort of academic genius, so he supposed he could relax his standards for once. _William would be so impressed,_ he thought dryly.__

_ _The boy startled slightly at the sound of Kyle’s voice, as if he hadn’t been expecting Kyle to speak. He finally stopped looking around at the rows of books that filled the shelves lining the walls of Kyle’s study, focusing back on Kyle where he sat across from him, separated by the wide expanse of polished wood that made up the surface of Kyle’s desk. His eyes flicked up, briefly, catching on the large painting that hung directly behind Kyle’s chair, and Kyle allowed himself a small smile, just for a moment. He loved that painting, less for its contents, though he had to admit that the painter had done a remarkable job of capturing William’s good looks, and more for what it represented. How much his father would have _hated_ to see Kyle in this room, behind his desk, never failed to send a shiver of pleasure up his spine, after all. When the boy’s eyes finally settled on Kyle’s face, however, the smile was gone as if it had never been. _ _

_ _“Yup!” the boy said, and sure enough, there was the smile stretching back across his face. “Just started my masters in microbiology.” Kyle hummed, noncommittal, and the boy’s smile faltered slightly. _ _

_ _“Mr. Andersen spoke very highly of you,” he said, and the boy’s expression jumped right back up to its previous level of cheerfulness. Kyle tamped down on the urge to raise an eyebrow. _ _

_ _“Yeah, Freddie’s the best,” he said, voice enthused, and Kyle let his eyebrow rise after all. “I mean,” the boy said quickly, backtracking, “he’s a great employer, I’ve really enjoyed working for him and um, cleaning his pool and… stuff…” The boy trailed off awkwardly, and Kyle decided to have mercy on him. After all, this wasn’t a boardroom, there was no need for him to put some 20-something through the same machinations he applied to the far more powerful men who he wanted something from. All he needed from – he glanced back down at the resume – all he needed from _Mitch_ was a clean pool. _ _

_ _“Well it seems like you have enough experience, and Mr. Andersen’s recommendation was quite complementary. I would require you to come by at least twice a week. Is that amenable to you?” _ _

_ _“Uh, yes?” Mitch said, and though his voice made it sound more like a question, Kyle supposed it would do. Andersen had said that he was the only person Mitch was working for right now after all, and he was much less exacting in his cleanliness than Kyle was – he and Auston had had Kyle and William over for dinner before, and between the children and the dogs their home was the picture of barely contained chaos. He was certain Mitch would have the time in his schedule. _ _

_ _“When can you start?” he asked and Mitch startled again, as if he wasn’t expecting Kyle to actually hire him, or was maybe expecting more questions. Kyle didn’t know what on earth more he could have possibly expected Kyle to ask – it’s not like he knew how pool cleaning worked, but it seemed like a simple enough job and if he hadn’t fucked up their neighbor’s pool in the last two years, it was pretty unlikely he’d fuck up Kyle’s. _ _

_ _“Oh, uh, whenever?” he said, and Kyle barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes. _ _

_ _“Great,” he said instead, standing up and adjusting his jacket slightly before offering his hand. Mitch’s grip in his was surprisingly strong, though still a bit too loose, and his palm was a bit damp. Kyle felt slightly satisfied at that, disgusting as it was. It was always nice to be reminded how intimidating ordinary people found him. “Let me show you where the pools are.” _ _

_ _He didn’t bother turning back to check that the boy was following him as he set off through the house, trusting that he would follow, obedient, and was rewarded with the sound of his shoes tapping off of the hardwood behind Kyle. He kept his pace slightly slower than he would normally, deciding he had the time to indulge the boy in his curiosity. Sure enough, when he glanced behind him it was to the sight of the boy staring at the house around him, mouth slightly open in awe. Kyle turned back, allowing himself another small smile. He had spent a lot of time and money renovating the house after his father had died, transforming the centuries old family estate into something that seamlessly bended history with modernity. He’d gone through three architects and spent almost a million dollars, but it had all been worth it, the mausoleum of his childhood completely transformed, replaced with a building perfectly tailored to coerce and cajole, intimidate and comfort. The parties he hosted in this house, William a perfect, smiling accessory on his arm, wielded just as much influence on his businesses as the meetings held in his offices downtown. He was just as likely to convince a partner to sign a contract that would significantly favour his own interests in his study as in the glass-lined walls of one of a dozen identical boardrooms, something that the people he dealt with were well aware of. An invitation to a Dubas party was a highly coveted thing, a fact that never failed to provoke a feeling of pride within himself. After all, it had taken a lot of work, and a lot of time spent developing connections at every level of business and politics, to craft this reality. _ _

_ _“Pools?” Mitch’s voice from his elbow startled him slightly, and he was surprised to see that he had caught up with Kyle and was staring up at him rather than at the house around them. _ _

_ _“Yes,” Kyle said, voice steady, his surprise never surfacing to where it could be detected by the boy. “One indoor and one outdoor, at the back of the house. They will both need to be serviced regularly. I prefer they be cleaned twice a week as baseline, and again if we have hosted any guests. Are you available to come on additional days, as needed?” Mitch shrugged with a casualness that Kyle would find infuriating in any other setting. _ _

_ _“Yeah probably. I clean Fre–” the boy paused, catching himself, and then continued, “Uh, Mr. Andersen, I clean his pool on Sundays, but I’m free other than that.” Kyle let himself feel the pleasure of the correction, the way the boy had already begun to modify his behaviour to suit Kyle’s expectations. He liked to think of himself as exacting, but fair, and whatever other faults the boy might have, they might be forgiven if he was able to speak appropriately. Kyle nodded once, sharp. _ _

_ _“Excellent. I’ll have a contract drawn up and sent over to you for you to sign by the end of day tomorrow.”_ _

_ _“A contract?” the boy said, voice laced with surprise, then seemed to catch himself again. “Or yeah, I mean, that sounds good.” Kyle didn’t say anything, just pulled open a door and gestured through it. The indoor pool was impressive, all blue and gold tiles and white marble columns, the green-blue water filling the space rippling slightly in the still air, throwing reflections up at the high arched ceiling. _ _

_ _“Oh woah,” Mitch said under his breath, and Kyle let himself feel another spark of pleasure as he gestured the boy ahead of himself, towards the far end of the pool. They walked past the chaises that line the sides of the pool in silence, Kyle’s shoes provoking a sharp, echoing statticato from the tiles, until they reached the spot where a door was discreetly situated in the wall, designed to blend in as much as possible. The supplies inside were a mystery to Kyle, reordered by his household manager whenever the pool boy informed her they needed more and not thought about aside from that. Mitch showed an immediate familiarity with them however, stepping into the small space with far greater confidence than he had shown at any other moment since Kyle greeted him at the door. He began checking the labels on the various bottles, and Kyle watched him for a moment before speaking._ _

_ _“If there is anything missing, or if you ever need a refill, let Claudia, the household manager, know, and she’ll get you more.” Mitch shot him a slightly confused look, but Kyle just smiled benignly back at him, enjoying his confusion more than he probably should. Interviewing someone like a pool boy would more traditionally fall to the household manager of course, but Kyle preferred to have a personal hand in the hiring of his staff, though he trusted Claudia to take care of any issues that might arise afterwards. “Let me show you the outdoor pool,” he said rather than explaining, and led Mitch back out the same door that they had come in, before continuing onwards to the back of the house._ _

_ _“Wow this place is uh, really big,” Mitch said. _ _

_ _“Yes,” Kyle said blandly, “nine bedrooms, thirteen baths. It’s been in my family for four generations.” It was obscene, he knew, purposefully so. He would be just as happy with a penthouse condo downtown – just as expensive, just as flashy, but much less work – but there were certain people that he dealt with who would be impressed only by the display of the type of old money that the entire house represented, so here he was. He still kept a condo downtown, of course, for business and occasionally for pleasure but most importantly so that he could say he did, but that was besides the point. When they reached the glass doors Kyle once again opened them for Mitch, gesturing the boy through. The sunlight lit up the boy’s eyes as the stepped outside, making them appear even lighter as he looked around the estate, mouth once again falling slightly open in awe. Kyle followed his gaze, taking in the familiar expanse of marble tiles, the large pool with its waterfall filling the space with the gentle sound of running water, the plants that surrounded the pool area, creating an illusion of privacy, and beyond that the pool house, and then the rolling lawns and woods of the rest of the estate. On a second sweep, Kyle’s eyes caught on a familiar figure sprawled out over one of the loungers, and he had to bite back a sigh. _Of course,_ he thought to himself even as he walked himself and, by proxy, Mitch, over towards the chaise. The man on the lounger was already turning as they approached, Gucci sunglasses pushed up and off his face as he watched them draw nearer. _ _

_ _“Mitch, let me introduce you to my husband, William,” Kyle said, and William stood, walked over to where they’d stopped, offering his hand to Mitch. _ _

_ _“You can call me Willy,” he said, his smile wide and full of genuine warmth. He was wearing the smallest swimsuit possible of course, skin glistening, covered in tanning lotion. _Whore,_ Kyle thought, dispassionately, and like he could hear his husband’s thoughts, William turned his way, his smile turning sharp and biting. _ _

_ _“Hullo darling,” he said, leaning in to press a quick, dry kiss to the corner of Kyle’s mouth. “Who’s this?” _ _

_ _“This is Mitch,” Kyle said, and out of the corner of his eye saw Mitch raise his hand to wave at William. He fought himself on the urge to roll his eyes. “He’s going to be cleaning the pools.” _ _

_ _“Awesome,” William said, voice enthused, and Kyle bit down on the inside of his cheek to prevent himself from saying anything caustic in front of the pool boy. “I’ll probably see you around a lot then.” William laughed, glancing over at Kyle, and if you didn’t know him you would think that there was nothing in his expression but simple happiness. “I spend a lot of time out here. Actually, sweetheart, why don’t you let me take over the tour from here? I can show – Mitch, was it?” Mitch nodded, looking a bit awestruck, “I can show Mitch where the supplies are out here.” Kyle narrowed his eyes but when William just smiled back at him, guileless, he finally gave in to the urge to roll his eyes. By the time Mitch looked back at him however his expression was once again back to one of bland disinterest. _ _

_ _“Thank you, I have work I need to get back to anyways,” he almost smiled at the expression that flashed across William’s face but managed to stop himself, turning instead to meet Mitch’s eyes. “I’ll have that paperwork sent to you. You can start tomorrow?” He barely gave Mitch time to nod before he was once again offering his hand for him to shake. _ _

_ _When he left the pool area he could just make out the sounds of William talking._ _

* * *

_ _William didn’t talk to him, didn't even look at him the entire drive back to the house, the silence between them turning the air thick and cloying as they sat as far apart as was possible in the backseat of the town car. The driver, more than used to them, was silent as well, the radio turned down so low it was practically inaudible. He was probably just happy to not have them screaming at each other, Kyle thought placidly. He hated to have a domestic in front of any member of his household staff, but William was so often irate after events that it had become rather unavoidable. He wasn’t sure that this silence, promising worse to come once they reached the house, was any better, but at least it was less embarrassing than having a witness to his husband venting out every petty emotion he’d ever felt at him. William, for his part, seemed much less bothered by fighting in front of other people, though he’d always been more likely than Kyle to show his true emotions to the people around him. Kyle supposed that at this point he should simply be grateful that he was still willing to put on their well-practiced pantomime in public, having spent the evening laughing and talking with the other attendees at the gala with the ease of someone well-versed in the machinations happening just under the surface of every conversation. He allowed Kyle to place his hand at the small of his back, smiled back at him when Kyle handed him another glass of champagne, even leaned up to press a quick kiss to Kyle’s cheek. The picture of a perfect, beautiful, loving husband. _ _

_ _If he allowed himself to think about it, which he did only rarely, Kyle couldn’t help the rage that pricked through him at what they had become, how much things between them had changed in the three short years since the wedding. _ _

_ _They made it all the way up to their bedroom before William spoke. “I can’t believe you,” he said, voice acidic as he yanked his tie off, still not looking at Kyle. Kyle went over to the dresser, not bothering to pause and turn on the lights or remove his own tie. Instead, he took a cigar out of the box sitting there, just because he knew it would make William even angier. It wasn’t… better, when William was yelling, but it was infuriating in it’s own way when he refused to just say why he was upset, and Kyle couldn’t help himself but try and provoke him further. Sure enough, William turned to glare at the sound of the window opening, though he didn’t say anything as he watched Kyle cut and then light the cigar. Refusing to show Kyle how much it bothered him, and that didn’t bode well for whatever he was actually angry about, that he couldn’t be distracted from it by another annoyance. _ _

_ _“What?” he finally asked, blowing smoke out the open window. He turned to look back at Willy as he took another long inhale. _ _

_ _“Are you fucking with me? You want to play dumb with me right now?” Kyle blinked back at him, impassive, and William’s glare deepened. It was an ugly look on him, and it made something deep within Kyle twist painfully. _ _

_ _“I cannot imagine what you are upset with me about. The gala was an incredible success.” Kyle paused, took another inhale of the cigar, watched the way Willy’s eyes flicked down to the glowing tip, the way the light of the burning ash reflected off the edges of the silver wire frames of the glasses he insisted he needed. Kyle exhaled, watched that small pinprick of light disappear, leaving both of them lit only by the light of the moon leaking through the curtains. The house was dead silent, all the staff gone for the night, and despite the night air swirling between them, the room felt like it had no air, burned through with anger and a million little unspoken resentments. “It’s your little project,” Kyle continued when William didn’t speak, a mocking undercurrent sliding into his voice the longer he talked. “I thought you would be pleased, all those children getting the chance to run around in fields or whatever.” It was true, too, by all accounts; the event had raised at least a million dollars for the youth sports program that William was the main patron of, his personal obsession that Kyle had always been supportive of – it made them look good, and well rounded, to be patrons of multiple charities and organizations. Kyle prefered social issues but William had always been fond of sports, and of children. The most lasting legacy of his degree in sports science, utterly unused since he’d graduated, though Kyle didn’t think William was particularly bothered by that. He’d even mentioned dropping out once, after the wedding, but Kyle had insisted that he finished school. To have a spouse without a degree would be an embarrassment in itself, even in something as common as sports science. The children thing, well… he’d stopped asking, after their second year of marriage, something that ate at Kyle just a little bit, if he spent too long thinking about it. The slightly broken look in William’s eyes that final time they’d talked about it, when he’d agreed that it just wasn’t the right time, not with Kyle’s career being where it was, was something that even he had had trouble shaking._ _

_ _“You spent the entire night staring at the Minister’s ass. His assistant too. It was humiliating,” William said, voice snapping out at Kyle from across the room, a lash meant to wound. Kyle raised his eyebrow, irritation spiking in his gut. He wouldn’t deny that he had maybe taken a glance or two, but it had hardly been the entire evening, and he most certainly hadn’t been caught out by anyone other than William. He would never be so careless, something that William was perfectly aware of. He stubbed the cigar out in the ashtray, too annoyed to continue smoking it, the flavour turning bitter and choking on his tongue. _ _

_ _“It was hardly the whole evening,” he started and oh, maybe that wasn’t the best approach because William didn’t let him finish, just spit _fuck you_ at him, turning and marching into the bathroom. He tried to slam the door behind him, the dramatic bitch, but Kyle was right behind him, holding it open with a palm pressed against the wood and William didn’t bother to try further, letting go of the door and turning to glare instead at their shared reflection. _ _

_ _“Besides,” Kyle continued, as if William hadn’t just thrown a spectacular little temper tantrum, “I’m not the one who’s actually fucked other men while we’ve been married, that’s all you my darling.” William’s expression crumpled, for a brief second, before firming once again into his mask of righteous anger. Kyle let himself feel a brief second of regret for saying it, especially since it wasn’t true, which William undoubtedly knew, or at least strongly suspected. But William couldn’t prove it, whereas Kyle had rather definitively caught him _in flagrante_ with their, now former, driver. He was also relatively certain that William had had a long-running affair with one of his friends, though whatever had been happening between them had rather definitively ended when David had gotten a job in America and had left William behind in favour of his career. Story of William’s life really, Kyle thought as he stepped up behind him, placing his hands on William’s hips. Poor William, always coming in second place to the ambitions of the men he surrounded himself with. If Kyle didn’t know for a fact that William had only started dating him for his money and connections, he would almost feel bad about it. He pressed a soft kiss to the back of William’s neck instead, a cruel contrast with the next words out of his mouth, spoken against the warm skin still beneath his lips. _ _

_ _“Maybe I will though. I mean, it would only be fair, right?” William didn’t say anything, and Kyle looked up, met his eyes in the mirror. William’s expression was surprisingly open, pain and grief and anger all mixing together, a messy tidal wave that threatened to tug Kyle under as well. Kyle wondered how much worse his expression would be, if he knew the petty revenges that Kyle had already indulged in. It was true to say that William had been the first to make a mockery of their wedding vows, folded nearly in half in the backseat of the town car, hidden away in the garage while the driver, a man even older than Kyle, slammed into him over and over again. William had been gasping and moaning in pleasure, loud enough that the sound had been what had alerted Kyle to what they were doing. Wanton, like the cheap whore he’d turned out to be. A shame, because Kyle had always thought he was marrying an expensive whore, bought and paid for in designer clothing and tropical vacations and a life of luxury that would have been otherwise unattainable. Kyle hadn’t bothered to interrupt, uninterested in the drama of such a moment, had just taken a couple of photos on his phone in case he needed to talk to a lawyer before he turned and walked away. He saved the confrontation, the tears and yelling and accusations, for later, when it was just him and William and everything that had broken between them. _ _

_ _But if William had been first, Kyle had perhaps been the worst. He wondered, occasionally, what would happen if Kasperi ever got up the guts to tell William that he’d let Kyle fuck him, railing him in his downtown condo and over his office desk and, on one or two rare occasions, in the bed that he and William shared. Or perhaps, if William ever angered Kyle enough, what William would do if Kyle revealed the affair himself, almost a year of Kasperi acting guilty and ashamed afterwards and yet always coming back for more. How William would react to that deliberate knife, pressed deep within his guts. Kasperi had been a good enough lay, receptive and eager and delightfully willing to have his face viciously fucked, but Kyle would be lying if he said it hadn’t mostly been about picking the one person in the world that would hurt William the most. A punishment, for both him and William, every touch between him and Kasperi tied up with a bow of pain and retribution. The most indulgent form of flagellation that Kyle had ever experimented with. It had grown tiresome eventually of course, Kasperi’s guilt becoming more and more exhausting until the cost finally outweighed the pleasure Kyle took in bending Kasperi over the couch in his condo and shoving his cock deep inside the other man. The cruel joy of fucking his husband’s best friend while his husband remained utterly oblivious no longer enough to balance out Kasperi’s whining about what would happen if William caught them. After all other, less difficult options abounded if he truly felt the need to put his cock into someone that wasn’t his husband. _ _

_ _“Don’t,” William said, interrupting Kyle’s thoughts, his voice whisper-quiet and cracking slightly on the second syllable. He reached behind himself to grab ahold of Kyle, his grip far too tight; desperate. “Please don’t.” Kyle swallowed, pressed another kiss against William’s skin. _ _

_ _“I won’t,” he lied. _ _

_ _“I haven’t–” William started, stopped. “I wouldn't, not again. I told you that. You _know_ that.”_ _

_ _“I do,” Kyle soothed, though he knew William was lying. Or rather, assumed he was. Couldn't think of any reason why he wouldn’t just keep bending over for anyone else who happened to glance his way. “I’m sorry baby. I trust you. And I wouldn’t cheat on you, ever. I promise.” He kissed the side of William’s neck, working his way up to his jaw. William tilted his head to give Kyle more room. Kyle sucked gently at the soft skin he found there, savoured the soft rush of air escaping William’s lungs. _ _

_ _“I love you,” William whispered into the empty air. _ _

_ _“I love you too,” Kyle said, and he hated the truth for the way it sat on his tongue, as fat and ugly as a toad. _ _

_ _He reached down, unzipped William’s pants, and decided to stop thinking about it. _ _

_ _It felt like hours before he slid inside William, William’s grip on the edge of the sink turning his knuckles white. Despite everything, it was still just as good as the first time, back when William was nineteen and Kyle had just taken him to dinner at one of the most exclusive restaurants in the city and then back to the very expensive hotel room he had rented for the night, staring up at Kyle with wide eyes as he pushed inside of him. Now, William was still tight and hot around him, his mouth open in a silent gasp as Kyle worked himself deeper and deeper inside of his husband. He paused, for a moment, when he finally got as deep as he could possibly go, his hips flush with the round globes of William’s ass, giving both of them a moment to catch their breath before he began to pull back out. The drag of his cock against William’s insides was exquisitely excruciating, and he didn’t pause when he reached the point where his cock was just barely still inside of William’s hole, pushing back in and making William gasp out loud this time. _ _

_ _After three years – four, if you count the year Kyle spent fucking and wooing and paying William’s rent and tuition, long before he’d put the ring on his finger that made that sort of transaction socially appropriate – he knew William’s body as well as his own, was able to angle himself just right to hit William’s prostate, making him clench down around him. The pace he set was fast, mean, and had William moaning almost immediately, head thrown back to rest against Kyle’s shoulder, eyes shut in pleasure. Kyle kept his own eyes fixed on the mirror, taking in the way William looked like this, so beautiful every time, a sight Kyle had, despite everything, never grown tired of. He could just see the outline of William’s abs under the runched up white button-down that he was still wearing, his cock straining at his underwear, only pulled down far enough in the back to allow Kyle’s own cock access to his ass. His pants had slid down further, barely keeping themselves above his knees, and Kyle spared a brief thought for pausing, for getting them both undressed properly and onto the bed meters away from him. He didn’tthough, just kept fucking into William with long, vicious strokes that had both of them breathing heavily. William hadn't let go of the edge of the counter, and Kyle couldn't let go of his hips without risking slamming William forward into the unforgiving granite, so he just idly watched as a damp spot grew at the clothed head of William’s cock, staining his grey briefs black. On one particularly hard forward thrust William’s hands slipped anyways though, his hip hitting the countertop and making him gasp in pain. Kyle pulled him back immediately of course, tightening his grip even as he moved his hand to rest directly atop of where William was now sure to bruise. It made William hiss, made him clench down around Kyle, encouraging. _ _

_ _When he came it was with a stuttering twitch of his hips, buried deep inside William, filling him with his cum even as William’s hands released the counter to reach back and twist in his hair. He let go then, finally, putting his hand down the front of William’s briefs. He barely had to touch him, only managing a handful of strokes, smearing precum around and over his foreskin, before William was coming in his hand, twitching and staining his briefs even worse than before. They stayed like that for a long moment, both men breathing hard, Kyle’s forehead resting on William’s shoulder as William kept his head tilted back onto Kyle’s. Eventually he had to pull out, something which drew sharp inhales from both of them. Kyle watched the white smear of his cum begin to slide from William’s hole, and made a mental note to go and get another STI test. He pressed a final kiss to the sweaty skin of William’s neck before letting go of him, stepping back to finally finish taking off his own clothes to shower. He’d gotten sweat and cum and lube on the front of his dress pants, something which made him grimace. He abhorred having to take his pants to the dry cleaners stained with evidence of the kind of sex that a couple that has been married for years probably should be well past having, yet he found himself doing it uncomfortably often. He tried to think about the last time he and William had had sex that hadn’t started with a fight, couldn’t, and then pushed the thought out of his head in favour of stepping into the shower and turning on the water. It’s only when he gets out that he realizes that William had left the bathroom. When he steps out into their room, he is greeted only by silence, and an empty bed._ _

* * *

_ _Kyle looked at the man sitting across the table from him and allowed himself to indulge in a brief, but vivid fantasy about standing up, walking around the table, and violently strangling him to death. He was being over dramatic, of course, a small evidence of the ways in which William has rubbed off on him over the years, but he reached the limits of his patience an hour ago, and was rapidly running out of politeness as well. The man across the table smiled at him as if he could sense Kyle’s frustration, though Kyle knew that not a trace of annoyance could be found anywhere on his face or in his voice. _ _

_ _“Kyle,” he started, and Kyle breathed out through his nose, slow and even. He had worked very hard to gain the respect of his peers, to already have risen to the top of his field at 34, to make the covers of magazines and be the name on everyone’s lips… and yet there were still men like this one, would always be men like this one, who would treat him like an idiot child, a trust fund brat without a single thought in his head. “You have to understand, this would be a very difficult deal for me to justify. What would I tell my board?” Kyle smiled, the same bland, inoffensive and unthreatening smile he’d been showing this man for the past two hours. _ _

_ _“As I’ve demonstrated, Mr. Babcock, you would be able to tell your board that you have made the deal of a lifetime, one that will continue to benefit your company for years to come.” _Long after you’ve been relegated to the trash heap of history, disposed of by the type of shuffle into retirement and obscurity that came with a smile and an unspoken threat to take it quietly and with grace_, Kyle thought to himself, smile never wavering. _Bastard_. The man hummed, pretended to look back down at the proposal in front of him, as if he hadn’t reviewed it before coming to Kyle’s offices, as if Kyle hadn’t spent the last two hours walking him through it over and over again. He was truly beginning to question whether or not this was worth it. It was of course, if he could pull it off it would be a multi-million dollar deal, and another welcome acolate on a long list of accomplishments, but fucking seriously. _ _

_ _“I suppose we could make it work,” the other man said with feigned reluctance. _Thank you Jesus,_ Kyle thought, and then Babcock opened his mouth again, and Kyle gave serious consideration to just screaming in his face. “I’ll have to take this back to my bosses first, you understand.” Kyle did understand, of course – he understood that Babcock was more than authorized to make these types of decisions on his own, but that he had decided, for whatever reason, to string along Kyle for far, far longer than necessary. Kyle didn’t know if it was his age, his family name, his sexual orientation, or something else about him that made Babcock so bound and determined to make this as difficult as humanly possible, but he was, had already done so, was continuing to do so. Kyle was, at this point, relatively certain that Babcock would cave eventually. He’d be an idiot not too, and while Kyle would be happy to throw plenty of labels at Babcock – old, for one, and irrelevant, cruel to his staff, stubborn and obstinant – he wasn’t stupid. Still, by the time he had shaken Babcock’s hand one final time, had walked him to the door and handed him over to his secretary to walk him back to the elevators, he was still without a signature, and more than ready to just start drinking and maybe never stop. _ _

_ _Kyle returned to his desk, flipped through his own copy of the proposal one more time before setting it down with a sigh. It was a good piece of work, fair and beneficial to both businesses, something that would set both of them up for future success. He was sick of arguing its case, sick of trying to prove something that seemed so painfully _obvious_. He turned to his computer, clicked through a couple of emails, scrawled a couple of notes to himself in his agenda, before finally leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes. He was exhausted, the meeting with Babcock running almost three times as long as he had intended it to, and he was seriously weighing the pros and cons of just abandoning the rest of his work until the next day and going home now. He was so goddamned _tired_. He stared at his computer for another minute before deciding to call it a day after all. A rare chance to leave work early rather than hours late. He shut down everything, returning all of the papers on his desk to their rightful place before heading out of his office. He said a quick goodbye to his secretary, and then headed towards the elevators, feeling a slight sense of illicit excitement grow in his stomach, the same one he used to get when skipping school as a teenager. He would have some whisky when he got home, he decided, indulge himself for once, a perfect end to an exhausting day. _ _

_ _Kyle’s study was cool and dark and he didn’t bother to turn on the lights, enjoying the way the dim sunlight soothed his eyes after a day spent under the harsh glare of fluorescent lighting. He poured himself a glass of whisky, neat, taking a long slow sip and savouring the burn and weight of the liquid on his tongue, the way it spread heat throughout his body as he swallowed it down. He was just going to spend the day in the study, he decided, the lonely living room, meant more for impressing guests than actually living in, a cold and uninviting alternative standing in stark contrast to the room that he had designed himself, for himself. He was just about to sit down on the horribly uncomfortable couch, whisky already carefully set on the table next to it, when he realized that he had left the book he was reading upstairs in his and William’s bedroom. He glanced at the shelves around him, debating simply starting something new, perhaps even a novel, something he hadn’t picked up in years, rather than trekking across the house to the bedroom. He stood for a long minute, debating with himself before finally deciding that no, continuing his reread of Kahneman was a far better use of his time even if he was, ostensibly, relaxing. Heaving out a long, indulgent, and mostly fake long-suffering sigh, he picked his glass back up and set off towards the bedroom. _ _

_ _He continued to take small sips of his drink as he wandered the halls of his home, enjoying each taste. He moved at a slow, leisurely pace, so at odds with how he normally comported himself that it almost takes effort to remember to do it, to stop himself from speeding up and getting himself to where he was going as quickly as humanly possible. Instead he indulged himself in running the tips of his fingers across wooden banners, pausing to take in the family portraits scattered in amongst the art pieces that William had largely picked out himself. His husband had taste in that at least, thank god, and Kyle had been happy to absolve himself of that single responsibility in renovating the estate. They tended to vary wildly between traditional and experimental, and he had always enjoyed listening to William enthusiastically discuss his choices with any guests they had over. It was probably the only time his husband wasn’t putting on an act with the men and women that Kyle had over to wine and dine and woo into signing obscenely expensive deals, not that anyone on the outside would ever be able to spot the difference between his genuine excitement about the art filling their home and his put-upon interest in every other fixation of the obscenely wealthy and powerful. William had always been a good actor. _ _

_ _Kyle had just reached the top of the stairs, was beginning to head down the hall when a movement outside of the window caught his eye. He hadn’t run into William since he’d come home which wasn’t unusual in itself – Kyle had assumed that he was out shopping, or getting his nails done, or maybe off somewhere with his friends. Stopping to look out the window, however, provided a whole new answer to what William was currently up to, one that Kyle never would have guessed at on his own. Outside, under the hot, unforgiving sunlight, William was sprawled out on his favourite lounger, a familiar sight, especially in the summer. What was less familiar, to Kyle at least, was the head of brown hair bobbing up and down between his thighs._ _

_ _William’s head was thrown back in pleasure, and Kyle could see the rapid rise and fall of his chest even from his vantage point on the second floor of the house. Mitch – because of course it’s the pool boy, could William be more tediously unoriginal – was crouched awkwardly at the foot of the chaise, William’s hand tangled in his hair as he sucked his cock with what was an impressive degree of enthusiasm. It was a truly casual betrayal, both unexpected and predictable, and Kyle took a sip of his drink as he watched Mitch choke himself on William’s cock. _ _

_ _William’s throat worked in a moan that Kyle couldn’t hear but could well imagine, every sound that William made during sex, even sex with other men, so terribly familiar to him. Mitch’s fingers were dimpling the skin of William’s thighs from how tight he was holding on as he took him into his throat over and over again, as he let William roll his hips upwards towards his face. He wondered how this had happened, who had seduced who – his whore of a husband, lying practically naked next to the pool every day, watching the pool boy behind his designer sunglasses, wanting and waiting, or the slut he’d apparently brought into his home himself, stripping off his shirt while he worked to grab at William’s attention, drawing him in with his wide smile and genuine enthusiasm. Not that it really mattered, who had made the first move, the betrayal ultimately landing on William, the boy just a means to an end, a way of achieving his goal of hurting Kyle, again, of driving yet another splinter deep into their marriage. A second thought, then, more acidic: how long had this been going on? It was one thing for William to spend years being fucked by David on the side – for one, Kyle had never had to be subjected to bearing witness to it – but at least then it had taken place in David’s apartment, or hotel rooms, or who knows where but certainly not in his house, in Kyle’s house, in the house that he and William had built together. Kyle sighed, took a sip of his drink, closing his eyes and allowing himself a moment of feeling truly exhausted._ _

_ _When he opened his eyes again it was to the sight of Mitch gagging, pulling back for a second before driving his head back down. William was close, chasing his pleasure almost without thought for the other man at this point, hips moving upwards in short, sharp thrusts. He idly wondered what it would be like to choke Mitch on his cock instead, dismissed the thought, and then circled back around to it. There was no reason why Kyle should be the only one to feel this way, to have this particular, cliché betrayal foisted upon him. If William wanted pain, it was the least that Kyle could do to spread that pain around. And since the pool boy was apparently a slut, something that Andersen had utterly failed to mention, Kyle figured it wouldn’t be too difficult a task. He spared a brief thought to whether or not either Andersen or his husband had had a taste of what William was now experiencing, deciding that he would assume that one of them had until proven otherwise, assume that at least one of them had at least fit their cock into the boy’s mouth or ass. At least that way he could pretend that he wasn’t the only one failing to keep his marriage together. It was embarrassing that this one task, just being married to someone who was able to make him look good and help him in his rise to power, a task which should have been so simple, simpler than anything else in his life, had become one of the most difficult. It should have been easy; instead, it turned out that he couldn’t stop his husband from cheating for more than a couple of months at a time, that he couldn’t stop them from slowly, steadily, falling apart. _ _

_ _He stayed just long enough to watch his husband cum in the pool boy’s mouth, to see Mitch crawl up the chaise and smile his way into a kiss, William’s hand sliding into his shorts, before he turned around and walked away._ _

* * *

_ _It wasn’t difficult to make sure that William wasn’t home the next time Mitch was scheduled to work. All it took was a comment that it seemed like it had been a while since William had seen his brother, how was Alex doing? and William was packing his bags and climbing into the car to be driven to the airport. Kyle gamely kissed him goodbye, resolutely not feeling guilty about what he would be attempting while his husband was out of town. It _had_ been a while since William had seen his brother after all, and Kyle was more than aware of how important William’s family was to him, the whole mess of them a joyful, chaotic presence at their wedding. They’d had it in Sweden, just over three years ago, the first and last time that Kyle had seen the entire blonde army of them all together. With no family on Kyle’s side other than his grandmother, it was easiest to travel to Europe to get married, to fill his side of the aisle instead with clients and potential partners in a show of wealth and performative familiarity. There had been some judgement of course, Kyle on the wrong side of thirty while William had just barely turned twenty, but he was unconcerned with the scorn of the type of people who did take issue with the disparity in their ages. He was marrying William, after all, for the type of people who would recognize him for the prize that he was, the trophy that Kyle had won by being the most successful, the most wealthy, the most powerful. For love, too, but William and Kyle were both very aware of, both very pleased with, the first reason as well. _ _

_ _So neither Kyle nor William had been bothered by the judgement of the people who shook their heads at the difference in their ages – no, the only people Kyle took issue with, was angered by, were those who pursed their lips and thought twice about doing business with him because he was marrying a man. Though he had spent far too long railing against his father’s desire to secret away his son’s sexuality to hide it as an adult, it still made him angry, still made him even more determined to prove them all wrong. The only person Kyle had truly struggled to deal with throughout that time was William’s father, a man who Kyle was fairly certain still hated him three years later; less for stealing his son away, though he was sure that factored, and far more for the fact that he believed Kyle was manipulating his son, had used his age and wealth and power to seduce William into a marriage that he didn’t truly want. That wasn’t Kyle guessing either – he had accused Kyle of as much to his face, jabbing Kyle in the chest as he accused him of things that made Kyle’s stomach clench. Which, Michael was welcome to think whatever he wanted, but the way the other man would constantly glare at him whenever they ended up in the same room together was irksome, to say the least. Still, there was no way that either himself nor William would ever admit the how and where of their first meeting, so he had no choice but to continue to bear the weight of his disapproval, to try and show, through whatever small gestures he could, that it wasn’t like that, had never been like that, between himself and William. It had all been worth it anyways, at the time, to have the chance to bind that beautiful man to himself for the rest of their lives, to affirm the love that had grown between them in front of God and everyone, to let himself be filled with the conviction that nothing would ever come between them. _ _

_ _Kyle intercepted Mitch at the door, the boy looking startled to see Kyle standing there waiting for him. Kyle just smiled begningely at him, face giving nothing away as he asked if Mitch wouldn’t join him in the study for a moment. _ _

_ _If Mitch had done a good job of covering up any nerves he’d had when Kyle had first interviewed him, he was doing a piss-poor job of it now, fingers tapping nervously against the side of his jeans as Kyle led him through the house. Kyle couldn’t help but smirk slightly as he walked ahead of him, though he made sure to school his expression back into one of blank disinterest before he turned and waved Mitch through the door. He had a moment, as he shut the door behind himself, where he let himself consider not doing this. He could, after all, simply fire the other man, tell him that he knew about him fucking Kyle’s husband just for the small pleasure of watching the blood drain from his face before telling him that he could expect his final cheque in the mail. Maybe even lean into the caricature that William had made of him, tell Mitch that if Kyle ever caught sight of him on his property ever again, he’d shoot him himself with one of his father’s old hunting rifles. It would be satisfying, every moment of it. _ _

_ _Just not quite as satisfying as the other option. _ _

_ _Kyle gestured towards the seat in front of his desk, asked Mitch to please go ahead and make himself comfortable. Rather than go around the desk and take his own seat however, he opted to lean against the edge of the desk, the sharp bite of the wood against his ass worth it for the way that it forced Mitch to tilt his head backwards to look at him, for the way it made nervousness flash across Mitch’s face, there and then gone, hidden fast enough that Kyle was almost impressed by it. He crossed his arms, staring down at the boy. He didn't speak for a long moment, letting the silence stretch out until it was resting just on this side of uncomfortable, watching as Mitch fidgets slightly, his fingers tangling together as he moved his feet in small, jerky movements. _ _

_ _“I just wanted to let you know you’ve been doing a great job,” he said, finally, making Mitch startle slightly. Kyle wondered what he was thinking, if he _had_ been expecting for Kyle to confront him about fucking Kyle’s husband, if he was worried about being caught. He should be, it would be extremely foolish not to worry about it, if not by Kyle then by any of the dozen staff that were on various corners of the estate at all times. _ _

_ _For some reason, Kyle suspected that Mitch was exactly that flavour of foolish. _ _

_ _“Oh, uh… thanks?” Mitch said, when it became clear that Kyle wasn’t going to add anything further. Kyle bit back a sigh. His husband truly had the most abhorrent taste in men. _ _

_ _“Has the schedule been working out for you?” he asked as he reached up to undo the cuffs of his shirt. He watched the way Mitch’s eyes tracked the movement, the way it took him a second too long to answer the question, abruptly jerking his gaze back to Kyle’s face. _ _

_ _“Yeah,” he said, “yeah it’s been like… good.” His eyes drifted back to Kyle’s arms as he rolled his sleeves up until they were midway up his forearms. A good enough sign to continue, Kyle figured._ _

_ _“William mentioned that he enjoys having you around.” William had done no such thing, but it made Mitch jump delightfully, and Kyle wasn’t particularly concerned about being caught out in a lie anyways. _ _

_ _“He did?” Mitch asked, eyes gone wide, and Kyle smiled at him, making sure there was nothing on his face other than open friendliness. _ _

_ _“He did, he said you’ve been very…” Kyle paused, letting the silence rest for a second too long. “Flexible,” he finally finished, watching as Mitch swallows, hard. “With the schedule,” he clarified, and some of the tension bled from Mitch’s shoulders. “We really appreciate you being able to accommodate us at such short notice. How are the Andersens?” Mitch blinked at him, obviously thrown by the abrupt change in subject. _ _

_ _“Good?” he answered, and it sounded more like a question. Kyle hummed, noncommittal, before abruptly leaning forward and brushing his fingertips over Mitch’s shoulder. Mitch shivered and Kyle let himself smile again, quick and small. _ _

_ _“Sorry,” he said, “you had some…” he trailed off, gesturing towards Mitch’s shoulder, watching as the other man looked down as if to try and spot the imaginary lint Kyle had already ostensibly brushed off. _ _

_ _“You enjoying your summer so far?” he asked, just so he can watch Mitch get thrown once again. _ _

_ _“Yeah no, it’s been good, I–” Mitch started, before Kyle interrupted. _ _

_ _“I’ve been spending too much time in my office,” he said, and Mitch just blinked at him. “I’ve been thinking that I should take William to the cottage for the weekend sometime soon.” Mitch brightened at the mention of William’s name this time, sitting up straighter. Annoying. _ _

_ _“That sounds… fun,” Mitch said tentatively. Kyle nodded, shrugging. _ _

_ _“Well, you know, it’s worth it to spend time at the beach,” he continued. “William just looks so good in a swimsuit.” _ _

_ _“Yeah,” Mitch agreed, clearly without thinking. He realized it immediately, what he’d said, _froze_, staring up at Kyle with wide eyes. It felt like the whole building was holding its breath, waiting for Kyle to react. Kyle just laughed, almost genuine. This was ridiculous. _ _

_ _“I imagine you would as well. I couldn’t help but notice that you tend to wear exceptionally short shorts when you come over.”_ _

_ _“Oh! Uh, sorry?” Mitch said, a blush creeping up over his face. Kyle waved his hand, dismissive. _ _

_ _“We don’t have a dress code,” he said It was a lie, at least for the majority of his staff, but also true. He didn’t care what the pool boy of all people wore, except, he supposed, when it led to his husband fucking them. Maybe he _should_ have the next pool boy wear a uniform. “Besides, they suit you.” He made sure that Mitch saw the way he ran his eyes up and down his body, slowly, deliberately, before making his way back up to his face. Mitch was still a bit pink around the edges, but as Kyle watched, his expression flashed quickly through surprise to understanding, finally settling on a surprisingly cocky smile. _ _

_ _“Thanks,” he said, easy, before returning the favour, glancing up and down Kyle’s body. “I like the way you dress too.” _Slut,_ Kyle thought to himself, pushing himself up to standing as he undid the top button of his shirt. He walked around to stand behind his desk, turning back to see Mitch still seated, still looking at Kyle with an expression that is becoming more openly hungry by the second. Kyle raised an eyebrow, nodding towards the desk. _ _

_ _“Well?” he asked, and Mitch jumped up, scrambling to come around the desk to Kyle. It would have been easier, smoother, to not have forced both of them to come around the desk, but Kyle had learned his lesson about trying to fuck someone else while facing the painting of him and William with Kasperi, and he wasn’t about to subject his attempted seduction of the pool boy to the same awkwardness. Well, maybe calling it ‘attempted’ was a bit of an undersell, he thought as Mitch finally reached him, standing far too close and staring up at Kyle. _ _

_ _Kyle only had to lean down halfway before Mitch was surging up towards him, meeting his mouth in a kiss that was all enthusiasm and no finesse. Kyle reached up without thinking, grabbing ahold of his jaw to take control of the kiss, and Mitch moaned. Kyle almost smiled, not hesitating before he deeped the kiss. _ _

_ _It turned out that Mitch loved being fingered, bent over Kyle’s desk, shorts still clinging to one of his legs but shirt fully stripped off, panting as Kyle worked three fingers in and out of his ass. He’d spent longer fingering him than he would usually bother with but he would admit to becoming distracted, attention caught by how receptive Mitch was, how responsive. He was twitching, moaning with every thrust of Kyle’s fingers inside of him, hands gripping the far edge of Kyle’s desk with a satisfying level of desperation. It was a pretty sight, the boy all spread out for him, panting for him, rolling his hips backwards for him. It was a relief as well, the one thing Kyle had actually been worried about in all this – that the other man wouldn’t be receptive to being fucked – a worry quickly set to rest by the way Mitch had broken their kiss to strip his shirt and turn around without being told too, bending over his desk all on his own, shooting a coy look back at Kyle over his shoulder. A relief, because Kyle was very aware of just how much of a pillow princess his husband was, and though he didn’t know if the two of them had gotten this far, he did know that if he had, Mitch would most certainly not have been the one getting fucked. _ _

_ _Kyle pulled out his fingers, wiping the lube from them on the side of Mitch’s thigh, ignoring the indignant noise the other man made in favour of rolling on a condom. He asked, a brief moment of politeness in all of this, if Mitch was ready, even as he used one hand to press down on his lower back, holding him in place as he tapped the head of his cock against Mitch’s hole. Mitch agreed with an eagerness that made Kyle smile, small and cruel, there and then gone again in an instant before he returned his attention to the task at hand. The sound Mitch made when Kyle finally pushed his cockhead against and then, all at once, inside of his hole was truly beautiful, a soft, broken open sound of pleasure as Kyle slid inside of him, deeper and deeper until he reached the end and there was nowhere else to go but back the way he came, drawing his cock back out in one long, painstaking move. He set a bruising pace, something that Mitch was more than ok with judging by the moans slipping from his mouth, the way he pushed his hips backwards to meet every thrust, the way he took Kyle’s cock so easily, so beautifully. Kyle watched as Mitch’s eyes slid shut, face twisted in a mask of pleasure as Kyle shoved inside of him over and over again. He was still hanging on to the edge of the desk, fingers flexing uselessly, helplessly. His hole looked so pretty, stuffed full of Kyle’s cock, opening up for him over and over again, stretched pink and eager around him. _ _

_ _It didn’t take long before Mitch’s hole was fluttering around him as he stuttered out a warning, a plea for more, for harder and faster and Kyle was more than happy to oblige him, slamming into him, over and over again, the thick smack of skin hitting skin filling the air. Mitch was loud in a way that made Kyle’s skin prickle with equal parts arousal and annoyance. It was truly a miracle that he hadn’t caught him and William earlier, if this was what Mitch was like every time. He decided to be generous to Mitch’s pleas, adjusted his angle and that was enough, apparently, Mitch cumming with a shout, his entire body spasming as his cock spurted cum onto the rug below him, utterly untouched by either himself or Kyle. It was hot, even as Kyle’s first, petulant thought was for how annoying it will be to get that rug cleaned. It made Kyle speed up his thrusts, chasing his own release. Mitch was gasping, probably overstimulated to hell but he didn’t ask Kyle to stop, still moving his hips backward in small, encouraging hitches that had Kyle fucking into him over and over and over again, as fast and hard as possible, until he too was cumming, deep inside the other man, filling the condom as he shuddered and gasped. _ _

_ _Mitch’s hair was an absolute disaster when he paused in the doorway, looking back at Kyle, still buttoning his shirt back up where he was lounging in his chair behind his desk. He was still flushed, eyes less certain as he searched Kyle’s face for something. Kyle didn't give him anything in return though, face impassive. _ _

_ _“That was good,” he said and then, impulsive in a way he rarely was, “if you want a repeat, the next time William isn’t home, come find me.” He almost regretted it, the small moment of vulnerability, of admitting a want, but then the boy blanched slightly, and Kyle figured it was worth it for that alone. _ _

_ _Besides, it was true – he really wouldn’t pass up the chance to bury himself in that ass again._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [come listen to me yell about this even more on twitter](https://twitter.com/thotlander). if you're not obviously an RPF account, just DM me to let me know you came from here.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much to eliza for the beta!! and to everyone who's done word sprints with me over the last eight days

Willy had known that Kyle was different from the moment he’d first laid eyes on him. 

The conversations they’d had before that first date had been relatively unremarkable, the same sort of necessary but stifling banalities that he’d exchanged with dozens of men over the years since he’d come to Canada; some that had actually led somewhere, more that hadn’t. He had been excited when Kyle had suggested meeting though – for one, he was younger, and far more handsome, than most of the men that Willy had gone on dates with in the time that he’d lived here, and while Willy had an unfailing ability to find something attractive in everyone, to look for the best in every single person he met, he would be lying if he said he wasn’t looking forward to the possibility of sleeping with someone who was, objectively, hot. There was also the very inconvenient fact that his last sugar daddy had rather abruptly fucked off after his wife had caught him sexting Willy, leaving Willy in a bit of an uncomfortable position vis à vis his next month’s rent. Not that Willy would be so gauche as to mention that on a first date, but he could admit, at least to himself, that it was on his mind, and that it was part of the reason that he’d been so eager to say yes when Kyle had asked to meet. 

It should have given him extra motivation to present himself flawlessly, from how he comported himself to how he looked, given that a rather uncomfortable conversation with his landlord hinged upon this date going well. However, sometimes nature is both an undeniable and inalienable force and, despite his best intentions, Willy ended up losing track of time and arriving at the restaurant after Kyle. The maître d' had looked down his nose at Willy, asking his name twice before huffing and finally, reluctantly, leading him to a table in the back. Kyle didn’t look up from his intense perusal of the menu until Willy actually reached the table, eyes rising to land first on the sour face of the maître d' before sliding over to Willy, standing just behind him. His thick, black-framed glasses didn’t hide the way his eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled, standing up and gesturing Willy into the seat across from him; the perfect gentleman. Willy scanned his eyes down Kyle’s body briefly before the other man had the chance to sit down – his suit was expensive, but not ostentatious, a classic, rich navy blue in a fabric that Willy’s fingers itched to touch. If he was a different person he might have felt self-conscious about his own outfit – a nice enough button-down shirt and his least ripped pair of jeans, certainly too casual for this establishment – but he knew how good he looked in it, the shirt unbuttoned low enough to tease, flashes of the chain around his neck drawing the eye to the glimpse of skin beneath. From the dark look in Kyle’s eyes when he performed his own scan of Willy’s body as he sat down, Willy assumed Kyle, at least, didn't have any objections to how Willy was dressed either. Willy smiled back at Kyle, running one of his hands through his hair as he settled fully into his seat. Kyle tracked the movement with his eyes, expression unreadable in a way that sent a thrill down Willy’s spine. 

“I ordered a bottle of wine,” Kyle said, and if Willy had been waiting for Kyle to throw in a nicety about how he hoped that was ok with Willy, he would have apparently been waiting for a long time – Kyle just returned his gaze to the menu open in front of him without pause. Willy had to stop himself from smiling too widely as he picked up his own menu. Besides being the first thing that had betrayed Kyle as being less than perfectly composed (unless he was always just a little bit this side of rude), the presumptiveness in Kyle’s behaviour was, to be totally honest, kind of hot. Willy had always had a bit of a thing for powerful men who knew what they wanted after all – it wasn’t the only reason he was so well suited for these sorts of arrangements, but it certainly helped – and Kyle’s behaviour so far said that he was exactly that sort of man. David kept trying to tell him that he had daddy issues, but David could also fuck off. No matter how good he was in bed, sleeping with him wasn’t doing anything for the balance owing on Willy’s tuition payments, which, in Willy’s estimation, rather negated any opinions he might have about Willy’s behaviour. Sleeping with Kyle, on the other hand… well, Willy didn’t want to get too far ahead of himself. A couple of seconds later, Kyle shut his own menu, interrupting Willy’s train of thought. Willy looked up at the movement, to find Kyle looking at him, appearing to be slightly surprised to see Willy looking at his own menu. 

“The veal or steak will pair well with the wine,” he said, and Willy raised an eyebrow but still obeyed the unspoken directive, shutting his own menu just as the waiter came by with the wine. Willy watched as the man poured a small amount of wine into each of their glasses, leaving his own untouched on the table in favour of watching Kyle pick up his glass, his eyes carefully tracking the way Kyle tilted the glass, the way he breathed in the wine before he finally took a small sip. He nodded, and the waiter filled both of their glasses. 

“And are we ready to order?” he asked, setting the rest of the bottle in the middle of the table. 

“Yes,” Kyle said, not even so much as glancing at Willy, and Willy had to bite down on another smile. He _really_ did have a weakness for commanding men. “I’ll have the steak, medium rare, and William will have–” he cut himself off as if he’d been fully prepared to just make the choice for Willy, and Willy had to tamp down on a shiver as Kyle finally turned back towards him. 

“I’ll have the veal,” he said, watching as the look on Kyle’s face slid into something satisfied and approving. He found it surprisingly difficult to tear his eyes off of Kyle as he smiled up at the waiter and handed him back the menu with a murmured thanks. 

Kyle turned out to be ridiculously easy to talk to, funny in a dry, brutal sort of way, and so smart it made Willy dizzy. He could tell Kyle kept waiting for him to get overwhelmed by him, to get too intimated, or for his responses to Kyle’s accomplishments to flip over into overtly fawning. But Willy had never been intimidated by anyone in his life and he wasn’t about to start now, even if the man he was talking to was one of the richest people he’d ever met in his life, and also possibly the hottest. He kept calling Willy ‘William’, despite several attempts by Willy to correct him. It was a weird, overly formal gesture that was somehow charming, and Willy found himself becoming more and more genuinely interested in the other man as the evening wore on. He could read enough in Kyle’s body language to tell that he was just as into Willy; the way he leaned forward when Willy talked, the way his eyes tracked the movements of his hands, the way small, flickering ghosts of expressions slid across his face – surprise, amusement, _want_. 

When Kyle offered to get them a hotel room, Willy didn’t hesitate for even a second.

* * *

Willy crossed and then uncrossed his legs, fidgeting against the pillow of the chaise. The radio on the table next to him, set to a Swedish pop music station, was staticky, quiet enough that he could still hear his own breaths, hear the sounds his shorts made as they slid across the water-proofed fabric beneath him. The sky above him was empty, cloudless and, filtered through his sunglasses, tinted a strange, alien turquoise. He blinked once, twice, watched a bird flit in and out of view and then sighed. He propped himself up on his elbows, scanning across the patio until he spotted–

“Mitch,” he said, the other man close enough that he barely had to raise his voice to get his attention. At the sound of his name, Mitch looked up from where he was coiling up a hose, a smile already forming at the corner of his mouth. Willy couldn’t help but return the smile. Mitch’s smiles were irresistible, infectious in a way that he didn’t think he’d ever encountered before; despite himself, he found that he couldn’t help but smile back at Mitch, no matter his mood. “Mitchy I’m bored,” he said, letting his voice rise into a whine just to see the way that Mitch’s smile went wider.

“Ok?” Mitch said, dropping the hose and straightening. He gestured towards the hose, then the rest of the pool. “You can finish cleaning this if you want, and I can lie there and get a tan.” Willy wrinkled his nose at him. 

“You couldn’t get a tan if you tried,” he said, and Mitch laughed. 

“Probably not,” he agreed easily, and Willy couldn’t help but think, as he often had since Mitch had started working for them, about how different Mitch was to pretty much anyone else Willy knew. Anyone that he’d met since Kyle, anyways, and especially the people that he’d met _through_ Kyle, miserable, wealthy scavengers that they all were. He had a thought, brief, flickering, poisonous, about what differentiated _him_ from _them_.

Willy abruptly sat up the rest of the way, Mitch startling slightly at the suddenness of Willy’s movement. 

“Leave it,” he said, meeting Mitch’s eyes. “Let’s go…” he trailed off, watched as Mitch raised an eyebrow. The other man was shirtless in deference to the heat but not the sun, his shoulders already red and peeling, matching his nose. He was squinting against the light, his baseball cap abandoned on the table next to Willy in a small puddle, a victim of Mitch leaning too far forward over the water earlier. Mitch raised an arm, shielding his eyes so he could make proper eye contact with Willy. 

“Willy,” he said, tone somewhere between teasing and warning. 

“C’mon, I’m your boss right? So I can tell you to leave early if I want to.”

“I think technically Mr. Dubas is my boss,” he said, and Willy swallowed against a weird swoop of affection – at Kyle, for always being so consistently annoying and stuck-up about what people called him but also at Mitch, for going along with it, for calling him Mr. Dubas even when he wasn’t around to hear. 

“It’s not like Kyle will know,” Willy said, “he never comes out here anymore.” Never goes anywhere anymore, he thought, hating the way it sounded bitter even locked within his own head. When they were first dating, even when they were first married, Kyle would… but there was no point in lingering on that, not when it had been months since they had spent time together that wasn’t governed by social obligations to others, years since Kyle had looked at him in a way that made Willy feel like anything more than a decoration and an annoyance. Mitch still looked uncertain, so Willy let his voice turn wheedling. “C’mon Mitchy, you just cleaned it a couple of days ago, and you and I both know it doesn’t actually need to be cleaned this often.” 

“Yeah but I mean, you’re paying me to do it this often so I should probably like, finish the job” Mitch said, but Willy could tell he was beginning to waver. 

“My treat,” he said, a final bribe, and watched with a triumphant feeling filling his chest as Mitch’s look of hesitation transformed into a full smile. 

“How can you say my treat?” Mitch challenged. “You haven’t even said what you want to do. For all I know you’re just gonna buy me a shitty popsickle from the ice cream truck and get me fired for my trouble.” He was still smiling though, and Willy knew he had him, regardless of what he said. 

“Do you really think the ice cream truck comes to this neighborhood?” Willy asked. Mitch opened his mouth, to argue maybe, or just to retort, but Willy kept talking over him. “No, let’s go downtown,” he said, not thinking before letting the suggestions fall from his lips. “We can get pedicures and go have lunch or drinks or whatever on a patio.” Mitch’s eyes lit up at the mention of pedicures, taking an unthinking step forward towards Willy before he paused, visibly unsure. 

“I thought pedicures were you and Auston’s thing?” he said, “For your trophy wife dates or whatever.” Willy shrugged. 

“Auston won’t mind,” he said. Auston definitely would mind because Auston was a bit of a bitch about sticking to rituals, but that was a problem for future Willy. Current Willy, meanwhile, was very close to getting what he wanted. “Mitchy,” he said in as whiney a voice as he could muster, dragging out the ‘y’ an absurdly long amount. Mitch sighed, a fake, put-upon thing that made Willy smile in triumph even before he spoke. 

“Fine,” he said, “but you’re helping me put away all this stuff first.” He gestured towards the hose, the buckets of chemicals beyond it. Willy wrinkled his nose again. 

“That’s manual labour,” he said, making his voice as prim and prissy as he could manage without starting to laugh. “I don’t _do_ manual labour.” 

“At least not labour you have to stand up for,” Mitch said, voice still light and joking as he turned away, and Willy forced himself to laugh, determined not to ruin the lightness of their exchange. 

“You know me,” he said, voice carefully neutral as he watched the muscles of Mitch’s back shift under his skin as he bent and lifted the hose in one smooth motion. “I do some of my best work on my back.” Mitch looked back at him, surprise shifting into something Willy couldn’t quite read and he wondered if that had been the wrong thing to say, if his tone had somehow betrayed him– but then Mitch was smiling again, laughing and shaking his head as he walked away, and Willy let out his breath all at once. 

It only took a couple minutes for Mitch to get everything put away. When he came back, he headed straight to the lounger next to where Willy was still sitting, grabbing his discarded shirt and pulling it over his head. He also grabbed his cap, pulling it on without thinking, Willy’s mouth opening in warning too late. The belated realization that it was still soaked was obvious in the face Mitch made as soon as it touched his head, and Willy swallowed against the urge to laugh at him. The cap made a horrible, tiny wet noise when it slid over his hair. Mitch powered through it with a look of grim determination on his face. 

“Ok,” Mitch said, looking at Willy, “let’s go.” Willy watched as a bead of water coalesced from the cap on to Mitch’s forehead, beading and running down his entire face. Mitch didn’t even flinch, which Willy was honestly kind of impressed by, especially considering how close the drop had gotten to actually sliding into his eye. 

“Come inside with me,” he said instead of commenting on that. “I need to get dressed, and you should maybe borrow a shirt from me, if we’re going to go somewhere nice.” Mitch looked down at himself as he followed Willy into the house, grabbing the bottom hem and stretching out the faded Leafs shirt he was wearing. 

“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” he asked, still looking down at the shirt. “I could go somewhere nice!” Willy didn’t say anything, just reached out and hooked his finger through one of the holes at the collar of the shirt, tugging gently. “Ok, fair,” Mitch said, sounding resigned. “But I’m not putting on pants.” 

“God forbid,” Willy said, voice dry as they headed up the stairs towards the bedroom. The soft fabric of the runner muffled their footsteps as they headed down the hallway, past the large windows that faced out over where they had just come from. When they reached the bedroom however, Willy couldn’t help but hesitate at the doorway, struck all at once by how strange it was to be leading Mitch into the room he shared with Kyle – it felt like a violation, suddenly, some strange, small betrayal that Willy hadn’t been planning on making, that he didn’t even know if he wanted to commit. Mitch, for his part, must have noticed some change in Willy as they had approached the doorway because he had already stopped, a couple steps back. When Willy glanced at him, his face was set somewhere between wary and apologetic. 

“I can wait…” he started before trailing off, as if he wasn’t sure what he was actually offering, wasn’t sure if he should be offering anything. Willy shook his head as he looked back towards the room in front of him, before once again glancing over his shoulder at the other man. 

“No, it’s fine,” he said. “It’s fine,” he repeated, even more firmly, when Mitch gave him a doubting look. He stepped through the doorway, forcing himself to walk across the room towards the closet without another second’s hesitation. He opened the door, ignoring the way Mitch was looking around the bedroom behind him. There was much of the house that Mitch hadn’t seen – most of it, really. As far as Willy knew, aside from that first day when Kyle had interviewed him in his office, Mitch had just been looping around the house to use the patio door rather than cutting through the whole house to get to the pools – which actually took longer, but Willy kind of suspected that Mitch was a bit intimidated by either Kyle or the house, or maybe both. Willy wondered what Mitch thought of this room, what he’d think of the rest of the house as well, if he ever ventured into it. Their bedroom was bright and airy, purposefully picked out during the renovations to be the master because of the massive windows on either side of the bed; crisp white sheets and long, gauzy white curtains only serving to further open the entire space up. When he’d first moved in he’d loved the room for it, how the entire space seemed to breathe, a set of lungs at the centre of the house drawing air up and up and up and then out the windows, wind rushing out over the front doors, the cobblestone driveway, the wrought iron gate. 

Now… now, he just felt like he was suffocating, no matter how open the windows were. 

“Woah.” Mitch’s voice snapped Willy out of his thoughts, and he looked over to see the other man staring into the closet in open-mouthed wonder. Willy couldn’t help but smile, turning back to look into the closet, trying to imagine what it would be like to be seeing it for the first time. A lot, he’d imagine. It was a massive walk in, containing both his and Kyle’s clothing. Kyle’s side was mostly suits, drawers filled with carefully rolled ties, shelves lined with perfectly shined shoes, everything exactly where it should be. Willy’s side was slightly more chaotic, though not because of a lack of neatness. Kyle would probably have a heart attack if Willy ever so much as left a sock on the floor, a neurosis that Willy still, despite himself, found charming. No, the chaos came more from what Willy liked to think of as his eclectic and interesting style – designer t-shirts and jackets mixed with custom suits, sneakers next to boots next to loafers and an entire drawer full of the beanies that Kyle seemed to both hate and love on him in equal measure. 

“Is all of this yours?” Mitch asked, wandering further into the space, towards the giant mirrors at the back of the closet, fingers ghosting over fabric without ever quite making contact. 

“Mine,” Willy said, pointing towards his side of the closet, “and Kyle’s,” he said, pointing at the other side. His chest squeezed with guilt the way it always did when he mentioned his husband in front of Mitch but he determidly ignored it in favour of enjoying the wondering look on Mitch’s face, the way his eyes couldn’t seem to pick what they wanted to look at next. Mitch stared around him for a long minute longer before finally looking back at Willy, his expression turning serious. Willy’s stomach gave a little swoop of nerves before–

“You’re like, really fucking rich,” Mitch said, and Willy couldn’t help the giggle that escaped him. 

“The house and pools didn’t give it away?” he asked, smiling at Mitch. Mitch laughed. 

“Shut up,” he said, shaking his head even as he reached out so that his hand was hovering over one of Willy’s Gucci jackets. Willy watched him for another few seconds, feeling unbelievably fond as expressions of surprise, delight, and judgement flashed over Mitch’s face as he looked at Willy’s clothes. He seemed to be swallowing down whatever comments he wanted to make though, which Willy got, even if it made him slightly sad. Shaking his head, Willy finally managed to snap himself out of it, stepping forward and pulling out a Moschino shirt that had made him think of Mitch when he’d last looked at it a couple weeks earlier. 

“You should wear this,” he said. Mitch took it, eyes widening at the brand. 

“Um, I don’t think so,” he said, a nervous laugh escaping his mouth as he tried to hand Willy back the hanger. “This is like, a really expensive shirt.” 

“Don’t worry about it,” Willy said, and then, seeing the dubious look on Mitch’s face, “seriously, it’s made for you.” Mitch still looked uncertain as he looked back down at the shirt, but Willy could recognize the look of want mixed in with his reticence. 

“Here,” Willy said, reaching up and pulling out a Givenchy shirt. “I’ll wear this.” Mitch looked at the shirt, and Willy watched him read the brand name written on the label. When he looked back up at Willy, his face had transformed as an uninhibited smile once again took over his face. 

“Sick,” Mitch said, and Willy laughed. 

Getting into the back of the car with Mitch was a slightly surreal experience – mostly because Willy’s conceptualization of Mitch as a person was so intertwined with the smell of chlorine, the feel of sweat running down his chest, the press of the sun against his skin, that it was strange to see him in any other context. Despite everything Mitch had told him about his life outside of work, he was still in Willy’s mind only associated with _pool_ and _summer_ and _home_. The other part of it, smaller but still weighty in that moment, was that Willy still felt a slight tinge of lingering, sour guilt in his throat whenever he was in the back of the town car with someone else. Which was ridiculous, he knew. Patty had been, what, two, three years ago? And it wasn’t like he hadn’t fucked other people since then, or, at least, the man who was now excitedly pulling a water bottle out of his door, making a small, crowing noise of triumph when he spotted the candy tucked just behind it. Maybe it was just because he’d regretted Patty so much at the time, whereas now, with Mitch, cheating on Kyle just felt like a bruise rather than a wound. Back then he had still hated the pain he’d caused Kyle, even if Kyle had tried not to show it to him. Had worried, then, about how it had changed Kyle’s perception of him, how it had inevitably provoked a mutation in the feelings stretched between them, binding them together. Not that things hadn’t already changed by that point – after all, that had been the entire impetus behind Willy sleeping with Patty. Not that it was Kyle’s fault, not really, Willy had still made that choice all on his own, but Kyle’s behaviour had played its own part in Willy making that decision, in Willy taking them tumbling down that hill into the snared nest of brambles and thorns they now found themselves fighting from within. 

Willy wasn’t sure when he’d realized how much Kyle wore the ghost of his father around his neck like a noose. 

When they’d started dating – really dating, not just Kyle buying Willy designer shoes and paying for his tuition in exchange for Willy sucking his dick in the bathroom at the opera and riding him in his office after hours – Kyle had told Willy about his father. It had been a painfully stilted conversation, and Willy could tell how much every word cost Kyle. He’d stayed silent for the most part, gave Kyle the space and time to drag the words from his chest, one at a time, handing them over to Willy like something precious, like something rotted. Willy had learned about the slurs that Kyle’s father had screamed at him, about thrown dishes and thrown books and, eventually, thrown fists. How he’d never cut Kyle off, no matter how often he’d threatened to, not out of any love for his son but because his mother, Kyle’s grandmother, would have sooner disowned her son than her grandson. How it had given Kyle this endless, burning desire to prove him wrong, to be more successful than he’d ever been, and never, not even for a second, hide who he was. 

Kyle’s father hadn’t come to the wedding, which wasn’t a surprise but Willy could still see the disappointment written in the slump of Kyle’s shoulders when his grandmother told him that he had decided not to make the trip to Sweden with her. Willy did understand that particular moment of mourning, he thought. No matter how much Kyle disliked his father – hated him, even – there would always be some part of him that was still a son looking for his father’s approval, waiting and wishing to be told that he was loved, that he was accepted for who he was, that he was someone to be proud of. Willy had held him tight in bed that night, curled up around each other, pressed his lips against Kyle’s skin and whispered _I love you, I love you, I love you_ until they both fell asleep. 

When he’d died, Kyle told Willy he wasn’t going to the funeral. That was the first thing he’d said, getting off the phone with his grandmother, shaking so hard it had taken him two tries to end the call. _I’m not fucking going,_ he’d said, voice sharp and loud in the painful silence of the kitchen. Willy had winced, setting his coffee down onto the counter. _I’m not fucking going,_ he’d repeated, and Willy had pretended not to notice the way that Kyle’s voice broke in the middle. _Fuck that motherfucker, he couldn’t even bother… and now he’s dead and why should I go? Why should I fucking care I don’t even–_. He’d trailed off, looking lost. Willy had tentatively crossed the kitchen to wrap him in a hug that Kyle had immediately tightened, pressing his face into the crook of Willy’s neck. _I don’t want to care,_ he said, so quiet and low that Willy had barely been able to hear him. _Why do I care?_

If he was being honest with himself, and he did try to be, Willy would admit that he had thought that Kyle would maybe unwind a little bit, after his father’s death. Not completely, because he wouldn’t be Willy’s Kyle, wouldn’t be the man Willy fell in love with, if he wasn’t hungry, if he didn’t walk into boardrooms like a predator scenting blood and spend late nights at the office working to set fire to his competitors. But a little bit, maybe. Just enough to take a few extra vacation days a year, to stay late at work less, to spend more time with Willy, to maybe pick up the couple of conversations about kids that they’d had before the wedding. That wasn’t what had happened though. Instead… instead they had opened up that coffin to put the senior Mr. Dubas in and had thrown Willy’s husband in instead. It started with late nights, escalated into weekends at the office, to instructions for Willy to take his sisters or brother or David with him on vacations while Kyle remained in the city, to him slipping into bed long after Willy had gone to sleep. It was like living with a ghost, and it _hurt_ like nothing Willy had ever experienced before. He had tried to talk to Kyle about it, of course he had, and at first Kyle had promised to try to do better, even as he provided excuse after excuse for why he had to work this hard, why he had to go on this business trip, had to to the office on a Saturday, had to spend all night in his study, on the rare occasion when he was at home. But after a while he’d stopped asking and Kyle had stopped promising and it just… it became their new normal. Kyle, trapped by the words of a dead man and Willy, left alone in a gilt cage to starve. 

So then, Patty. 

Patty had been so _nice_, always chatting with Willy when he was driving them somewhere, Kyle usually either on his phone or too distracted for conversation, staring moodily out the window. When it was just the two of them, Willy would even come and sit in the front seat instead, where he would try and change the music and Patty would swat at him and make fun of him for his choices, would talk to him in an overwhelmingly casual way, a way that Kyle would probably deem inappropriate for an employee but which Willy found delightful in its impropriety. It was just so nice to talk to someone, to have someone listen to him and be around him and so when Willy had noticed the way that Patty’s fingers would graze over the inside of Willy’s wrist when he tried to change the music, the way that Patty’s eyes would fall to Willy’s ass when he climbed out of the car, he didn’t do anything to discourage him. Instead, he began to lean into the touches, to return the looks that Patty gave him. He didn’t intend to do anything about it, not really, couldn't even tell you if he had any intentions at all other than the fact that he was lonely and Patty was kind and he just needed someone, anyone, to _see_ him. And then one day Patty had grabbed his wrist when Willy was getting ready to slide out of the car, had pulled him in and pressed his lips against his and Willy let him and that was that, wasn’t it? It was sad, really, how easily Willy gave into it, how little of a push it took in the end for him to violate one of the most basic tenets of his wedding vows. Pathetic, is what Kyle had said when he’d caught them, and he wasn’t wrong, but when Kyle was the one that had made him that way Willy didn’t think it was fair to blame only him. 

It was just one kiss, that first time, before Willy’s heart leapt into his throat, before he jerked back, both men’s apologies tripping over each other on their way out of their mouths. He’d felt sick with guilt for days, avoided leaving the house just so that he didn’t have to risk running into Patty. He’d even skipped a dinner party with a couple of Kyle’s coworkers and their partners, begging off with a feigned illness and trying not to feel even more guilty at the look of genuine disappointment on Kyle’s face. Eventually though he couldn’t avoid it anymore, the necessity of a doctor’s appointment forcing him into the back of the town car. Willy had truly never regretted never learning how to drive more than he had in that moment, opening the back door of the car and climbing in to face the other man. Patty had tried to apologize but Willy hadn’t wanted to hear it, wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened at all. It had worked ok, things awkward but settled between them, but then Kyle cancelled on him three times in four days and Willy hadn’t let himself think, had just let his anger carry him through texting Patty that he needed to be taken downtown, carry him down the stairs and into the garage where Patty looked up at him, shocked, not even in the car yet. Still, when Willy pushed him up against the side of the car and kissed him there was no pause, no hesitation, before Patty was returning the kiss, was licking into Willy’s mouth and tangling his fingers in Willy’s hair. Willy sucked him off like that, Patty up against the driver’s side door, breaths loud and desperate in the painfully still air of the garage as his fingers tugged helplessly on Willy’s hair. Willy had swallowed him down and down until Patty was coming in his throat, salt and guilt weighing equally heavy on his tongue as he stood back up. Patty was still struggling for breath, eyes wide as Willy ran his thumb over both corners of his mouth. 

“I can–” he started, before Willy cut him off. 

“Sorry, I don’t need the car after all.” Patty blinked at him once, twice. 

“What?” he said, and Willy’s stomach was twisting too much for him to feel even a little bit smug about how stupid he’d apparently made the other man. 

“Sorry,” Willy repeated, turning and leaving Patty alone in the garage. He was almost running by the time he made it into the bathroom by the kitchen, door barely closed behind him before he was dry heaving into the sink. He didn’t throw up though, the thing that he wanted out of him nothing that could be expelled through his mouth. He’d splashed cold water on his face, had stared at himself in the mirror through lashes that dripped water and told himself never again. One time. A mistake. 

The bruises on his knees had faded by the time Kyle saw him naked again, but the guilt stayed. 

When Kyle caught them it was only the fourth time that anything had happened between them, the third time nothing more than rushed handjobs exchanged in the backseat of the car before Patty had to go to the airport to pick up Kyle. That had been after Kyle had told him that he would have to miss Willy’s mother’s birthday, even though he had promised Willy that he wouldn’t, that he would make the time to go home to Sweden with him. The fourth time though, the final time, Willy didn’t even have a good reason for doing it, couldn’t blame it on any particular behaviour of Kyle’s, no weak justification for his answering, disproportionate transgression. It was just the same, tired disappointments that he’d dealt with without cheating for years; that he hadn’t seen Kyle for more than twenty minutes in two weeks, that David had cancelled their plans for that weekend, that Auston wasn’t answering his text messages. Patty though, Patty was there, waxing the car with the same fastidious attention to detail that had resulted in Kyle hiring him in the first place. It hardly took any coaxing though for Willy to get him into the backseat of the car, the black leather seats cool to the touch as he had stripped naked, savouring the look of surprise on Patty’s face, the way his eyes darkened when Willy spread his legs, hooking his arms around his thighs to hold himself open, exposed. When Patty pushed inside of him Willy had a brief, almost out of body moment of the foreign sensation of someone else’s cock sliding inside of him, the sensibile part of his brain screaming _wrong_ at the feeling of it. The petty, hurt part of him just moaned, relaxed and opened up for it, let Patty press him back into the seat, folded in half as he slammed in and out of him. It was good, good enough that Willy came almost as soon as Patty got his hand on him, but he still spent the entire time feeling like he was about to cry. He remembered wiping tears off his face once he was alone, remembered wondering what the fuck was wrong with him, why he was doing this. 

He remembered the look on Kyle’s face too, when he confronted Willy about it later that night. Remembered how cold he’d looked, face pulled into a rictus of anger that Willy had never seen directed at himself. He could still taste the salt on his lips, if he thought about it for long enough, from his own tears sliding down his face as he begged Kyle to forgive him, as he repeated _I love you_ over and over again as if that was any kind of cure, as if that was any kind of absolution for the sin he had committed. If there had been a killing sickness growing in them before then, that was the moment that it finally bloomed into death, the moment that everything turned to rot and dust. 

Of course Kyle had then gone off and fucked Kappy, so fuck him. 

The nail salon didn’t have the exact shade Willy wanted but they did serve them champagne in delicate flutes, and the look of delight on Mitch’s face when they brought them over to them made it worth it, worth the extra trip that Willy would have to make to come back again later and get the colour changed. He and Mitch didn’t talk much at the salon, Mitch too engrossed in watching the woman in front of him work, bent almost in half to watch as she shaved away the calluses on his feet, and Willy was reminded that Mitch had never done this before, a fact that he’d let slip on the drive downtown. For his own part, Willy just watched Mitch. He didn’t stare at him or anything, just took small glances at him out of the corner of his eye in between sips of his drink. Mitch was always so delighted by everything that Willy introduced him too, so excited to test new things. It was infectious, reminding Willy of how much he had enjoyed discovering the same things earlier, the inaccessible delights that wealth could unlock introduced to him years ago by Kyle. Willy felt a wave of affection for the other man as he watched him thank the nail tech profusely as he looked at his finished toes. He looked over at Willy, and the naked happiness on his face left Willy breathless. He was beautiful, like this. Still awkward and gangly but beautiful too, maybe despite it, maybe because of it. It was far too easy for Willy to get caught up in the swoop of his hair, the clear blue of his eyes, the wide, pink stretch of his mouth. It felt dangerous, like the best kind of adrenaline rush.

“Let’s get some food,” Willy said, before anything far worse could accidentally slip from his mouth. Mitch’s smile just got larger. 

The bistro had a small back patio, small enough that it almost felt private when the waiter led them to one of the corner tables, tucked behind fake potted plants, a fall of fairy lights wound through the trellis suspended above them. Mitch had that same look of awe on his face as he’d had earlier as they both took their seats, and Willy felt the sudden urge to keep finding things to give Mitch that look, to keep guiding him through the pleasures that had become such an everyday part of Willy’s life. _Oh my god_, he thought, slightly horrified as he watched Mitch pick up the menu, _is this what Kyle felt like with me?_. Mitch looked up at him then, still smiling, and yup this was definitely what Kyle had felt like. _Fuck me_, Willy thought, despairingly, before focusing on the present, desperately trying to distract himself from that particular train of thought by politely asking after Mitch’s roommate as he picked up his own menu. That was all the prompting that Mitch needed to launch into a very long story involving half a case of redbull, a dozen expired easter eggs, and a rather loose definition of what constituted a prank. The roommate, who Mitch had previously described to Willy as “like, a golden retriever, but human, and also really slutty”, was always a pretty safe bet for an entertaining, if borderline implausible story, offering Willy an easy out as far as topics went. 

The conversation meandered as they received their drinks, their appetizers, their food, traversing family and school and hobbies. Willy had spent a lot of time around Mitch since he’d been hired but he was realizing this was the first time he’d had a long conversation with him, or at least one about something more substantial than ‘how’s it going’ and ‘do you want to fuck me?’. Willy watched as Mitch laughed his way through a story about his brother and let himself relax, just for a minute, just for this moment.

“How about you? Mitch had asked, “you must have some great stories about your siblings? There’s like, a hundred of you, right?”

“Six,” Willy said with a laugh. “Not a hundred. And I don’t know… I don’t see them much.”

“Why not?” Mitch asked, and Willy shrugged. 

“They’re all still in Sweden except for my brother, Alex, he’s studying in Chicago, so I really only see them a couple times a year.” 

“You’ve been here since you were 18 right?”

“Yeah,” Willy said. “Came for school and never left.” 

“Because you met Kyle?” Willy laughed, hoped it didn’t sound as bitter as it felt. 

“Because I met Kyle.” 

“When was that?” 

“My second year of university. I met him online, he took me to dinner, and that was it really,” Willy said, the recounting of this story comfortably familiar at least.

“That was it? Like… you knew, then, that you’d marry him or whatever?” 

“Maybe not that intense,” Willy said. “But I don’t know, it was just like… we just fit together, so well, and it didn’t help that he was, y’know,” he gestured vaguely, something that hopefully managed to encapsulate everything that made Kyle _Kyle_. It wasn’t a good answer, he knew it wasn’t but… he tried not to think back to it, to how he’d first felt about Kyle, how he’d felt when they’d just gotten married. It was too much like digging a knuckle into a bruise, a sharp reminder of a low, throbbing pain that was otherwise easier to just ignore than feel. 

“Sounds like love at first sight,” Mitch said, and Willy laughed. 

“Maybe,” he said. “Though the hotel room afterwards certainly helped.”

“Love at first fuck,” Mitch said, expression serious as he nodded, though he cracked and laughed the second Willy did. 

“Yeah I don’t know it was… I loved him so fast and so hard.” 

“When did you get married?” 

“A year later.”

“Woah,” Mitch said, looking genuinely shocked. “That’s… fast. You would have still been, like, super young right?”

“I had just turned 20,” WIlly said, watching Mitch’s eyes widen even more. “It was… everyone thought I was crazy, rushing into getting married to this guy who was so much older than me, while I was still in school, still going out to university parties and stuff. I think my dad still thinks he like, tricked me into marrying him somehow, but I don’t know… I just knew that he was all I wanted. Or I guess I thought I knew that.” He looked up from where he’d started fiddling with the edge of his napkin to find Mitch staring at him in confusion. 

“Wait, what?” he asked. 

“What?” Willy repeated back to him, his turn to be confused. 

“Are you guys not… what do you mean, you thought you knew he was all you wanted?” Willy raised an eyebrow. He couldn’t be– but Mitch’s face didn’t change at all. Willy ramped it up by gesturing between the two of them, tilting his head and raising both of his eyebrows. 

“I mean…” Willy said when Mitch still didn’t react. Mitch tilted his head, pursing his lips. 

“That’s different though,” he said and Willy snorted. 

“Why is it different?” he asked. 

“Because you still want Kyle,” Mitch said simply, and Willy felt his breath catch in his throat. He swallowed. 

“Yeah, I do,” he said because whatever, fuck it, he could be honest with Mitch. It wasn’t like Mitch could judge him, since he was sleeping with Willy. Wasn’t like Mitch had the social capital to ruin Willy’s life or reputation even if he wanted to – Willy felt slightly mean for that thought, even if it was true. “I still think… I think I’ll always want him, forever. Till death do us part or whatever. I still believe that. It’s just… it isn’t the same, as it was back then.” 

“What changed?” Mitch asked, and Willy paused, searching his face for any hint of malice, but all he saw was open curiosity, and more than a little bit of concern. Willy swallowed, took a deep breath. 

“I think we kind of lost each other, along the way.” Mitch nodded his head, a nonverbal encouragement for Willy to continue, so he did, glancing back down at the napkin twisting between his fingers. “I still love him but I feel like I don’t know him anymore, at least not in the way that I used to. He’s always at work, always so busy and it’s made him… cold, to me but also just in general. He’s harder than he used to be.” 

“He’s unhappy,” Mitch said, and Willy jolted, looking back up at Mitch.

“No he’s not,” he said automatically, and Mitch once again looked surprised.

“He is,” Mitch said. “You can like, see it on his face, when he’s on work calls and stuff.” Willy snorted. 

“Okay sure. He’s got– getting, everything he ever wanted, but he’s somehow miserable.” 

“Yeah,” Mitch said, and maybe it was the simplicity of the statement, or just the way that Mitch seemed so confident in his words, but Willy felt something desperate and hopeful inside of him reach out and grasp tightly ahold of that thought, of the idea that there might be something, something other than him being fucked up at the core of what had soured between them. And that wouldn’t– he couldn’t do that, couldn’t do hope. Couldn’t chase after Mitch’s words as if they were any sort of bandage for this particular wound, as if there was any sort of deliverance or cure possible. Couldn’t bear to live through the disappointment of false hope. Willy opened his mouth, shut it. 

“I–” he finally said, then stopped, lost. He didn’t know how long it would have taken him to figure out what to say but thankfully Mitch took pity on him. 

“Have you seen Auston recently?” Mitch asked, and when Willy shook his head he launched seamlessly into a long monologue of all the ways that Auston had wronged him recently. Willy forced himself to smile at the right parts, forced himself to listen even when all his mind wanted to do was obsess over what Mitch had just said, to turn Mitch’s words over and over again in his head, repeat them until they made sense, became something Willy could believe in. 

When they got back to the house Willy still hadn’t managed to wrap his mind around the implications of what Mitch had told him and yet also couldn't manage to get his mind to focus on anything else. He could feel the rest of the day stretching out ahead of him though, just him, alone, trapped within his spiralling thoughts, unable to think about anything else but without anything to distract him, to break him free of it. So, when Mitch had jerked his thumb over his shoulder and said he was going to head home for the day, Willy had shook his head and stepped up into the other man’s space. 

“Why don’t we go back to the pool house instead?” he asked, pitching his voice low as he looked at Mitch through his eyelashes. 

“The pool house?” Mitch said, face scrunching in confusion. “Why would you want to– oooooh,” he said as Willy smirked back at him. “Oh, yeah, yeah let’s do that then.” Willy laughed, leading Mitch through the house. Kyle would be out until late, something Willy had confirmed with a furtive text to his secretary on their way back to the house, so they didn’t have to worry about him, didn’t even have to think about him, but… well, there were reasons that Willy insisted that they only fuck in the pool house, and they had nothing to do with being worried about getting caught and everything to do with the idea of home and protecting what little remained sacred between them. 

When they got inside, Mitch headed straight for the table next to the low bed, pulling out the lube and condoms Willy kept stashed there, and set them beside the bed before turning back to Willy. Willy looked at the supplies that Mitch had set out, then turned back to the other man. 

“Bit presumptuous, isn’t that?” he said. Mitch rolled his eyes, started walking back to Willy, but Willy just kept talking. “What if I didn’t want you to fuck me? What if I just wanted t– mmmph.” Mitch had made it across the room, cutting Willy off with the simple act of pressing his lips against the other man’s, licking into his mouth until Willy had completely forgotten what he had been talking about in the first place. He raised his hands to bury his fingers in the fine, silky strands of Mitch’s hair, Mitch’s own arms wrapping around Willy’s waist as they kissed and kissed and kissed. Mitch tasted a little bit like the cider he’d drank at lunch, and when he bit Willy’s lip Willy couldn’t help the little, stuttering gasp he let out. 

“Yeah,” Mitch said lowly, nonsensically, before he was kissing Willy again, walking him backwards until he hit the bed. Willy pulled away then, tugging off first his shirt, then the rest of his clothes until he was standing naked in front of Mitch. The other man ran his eyes up and down Willy’s body. No matter how many times they had done this, Mitch always acted as if he hadn’t ever seen Willy naked before, and this time was no exception, his expression hungry as he stepped back into Willy’s space to kiss him again. It made something warm and happy fizz in Willy’s stomach and he kissed Mitch back easily, eagerly. 

“You’re so hot,” Mitch whispered against his lips. 

“I know,” Willy said, and pressed a smile into Mitch’s collarbone when his words made the other man let out a surprised laugh. Mitch stepped away, pulling off his own clothing as Willy sat down on the bed, sliding back into the middle, watching as Mitch stripped bare. He undressed with a perfunctory efficiency, but it was still hot somehow, the unceremonial reveal of lean muscle and black ink on pale skin making Willy’s mouth go dry. He loved Mitch’s tattoos – he didn’t really want any himself, couldn’t _imagine_ the kind of fit Kyle would throw if he came home with ink pressed into his skin forever – but on Mitch the swirls of ink were mesmerizing, suiting him perfectly. Willy loved touching them, the way that the images warped under the press of his fingers, the slight surprise, every time, there wasn’t anything there to actually feel, just the warmth of Mitch’s skin, the prickle of his hair. He was still debating if he should ever tell Mitch that the tattoo on his arm that he had first excitedly showed to Willy one day while he was working, long before anything had happened between them, wasn’t actually of Zeus. He just couldn’t quite decide if he thought Mitch would take it in stride the way he did so many things, with a laugh and an easy acceptance of his mistake, or if he would actually be upset. There was something to be said about mistakes that couldn't ever be wiped away, not fully, and ignorance was so often bliss – something Willy knew better than most. 

The mattress sank when Mitch crawled onto the bed after him, snapping Willy back into the moment, back to Mitch, the smile that he pressed to Willy’s mouth capturing all of his attention. Mitch settled over Willy propped up on his hands and knees, the only point of contact between them their mouths as Mitch deepened the kiss, licking into Willy’s mouth as Willy let out a contented hum. He loved having someone over him, surrounding him, taking control. He wondered, sometimes, if his preferences would be different if Kyle hadn’t been so many of his firsts, if he’d slept with more people before him or after him, spent more time exploring and experimenting with other people. But that was useless speculation, and something that didn’t really bother him besides. It wasn’t like it was any hardship, to sink into the pleasure of being taken over, of being owned and controlled, though Mitch, while pushy in his own right, had a very different energy than Kyle. Not better, just… different. 

“Hey,” Mitch finally said, breaking their kiss to look at Willy. 

“Hey,” Willy said back, smiling up at him.

“I wanna fuck you,” Mitch said, straightforward as he always was, in the way that Willy had become so painfully fond of. Willy hummed, stretching his body over the crisp white sheets, savouring the feel of his muscles shifting and settling, the anticipation building low in his belly. 

“Ok,” he finally said. Mitch grinned, sitting back on his heels to grab the lube. “I’m not doing any work though,” Willy warned, watching as Mitch squeezed lube out onto his fingers. Mitch snorted, pushing at Willy’s knee until he let it fall to the side, opening himself up for Mitch, exposing himself to his gaze. 

“When do you ever?” Mitch asked, and Willy would maybe be a bit offended, if he wasn’t feeling so relaxed from Mitch kissing him, from his gentle touch on the inside of Willy’s thigh, from the way that the sunshine fell across them, leaking through the shutters of the floor-to-ceiling windows that surrounded them. Mitch pressed a finger inside of him without further commentary, making Willy suck in a sharp breath at the suddenness of the penetration before he relaxed into it. Mitch leaned forward to press another kiss to Willy’s mouth as he pushed his finger in, slow and steady until there was nowhere else for him to go. He kept kissing Willy as he pulled back out, thoroughly distracting him from the accompanying sense of loss. When he pushed back in, it was with two fingers and Willy couldn’t help the way his back arched at the intrusion, letting out a low, breathy sound that wasn’t quite a moan. The stretch was so good, perfect, exactly what he’d been craving. Mitch had pulled back when Willy had exhaled, had moved to pressing kisses against Willy’s neck instead so Willy tilted his head to the side, giving him more room to work. The sun was warm against his skin, and he felt so incredibly lazy, sated like he’d already cum even as arousal pooled in his gut as Mitch continued to work his fingers in and out of his pliant body. He hummed again, then gasped as the pads of Mitch’s fingers dragged over his prostate, sending sparks shooting through him. 

“Jesus yes, ok,” he said, his voice feeling shockingly loud in the hush of the space they had created between them.

“Ok?” Mitch asked, pulling back and looking at Willy for confirmation. 

“Yes, yeah,” Willy said, and Mitch sat up again, grabbing the condom and sliding it on with a practiced ease. He grinned down at Willy and Willy was helpless to do anything but smile back, letting his legs fall even wider as Mitch shuffled forward, hand holding his cock steady as he lined himself up with Willy’s hole. He didn’t bother to ask again before he began pressing forward, and Willy closed his eyes as his body stretched to accommodate the girth sliding inside of him, welcoming Mitch’s cock inside of him, slowly filling him up more and more until their hips met, until Mitch was as far inside of Willy as it was possible to be. He waited there, for just a moment, just long enough for Willy to open his eyes, staring up at Mitch. He’d repositioned himself, braced his elbows on the mattress to either side of Willy’s head and was already staring back at Willy with an almost wondering look on his face. Willy felt his face go hot. 

“What?” he said. Mitch shook his head. His eyes were almost translucent in the sunlight.

“You’re so hot,” he said, and Willy couldn’t help the smile that stretched across his face. 

“I thought we’d already established that,” he said, and Mitch laughed before finally sliding almost all the way out of Willy before abruptly shoving himself back inside. Willy gasped, head tilting back as pleasure shot through him. 

“Fuck, you look so good opening up for my cock,” Mitch said, staring down between their bodies to the place where he was disappearing inside of Willy. 

“Yeah,” Willy said nonsensically. “C’mon.”

“Yeah,” Mitch said, just as distracted as he continued to move in and out of Willy, Willy opening up for him so easily every time, his body welcoming Mitch’s cock inside of him over and over again until they were both panting for air, until all of the late afternoon laziness that had wound itself around them had dissipated into the sound of skin smacking against skin, both of them getting closer and closer to the edge. Mitch felt so good inside of him, filling him up perfectly, the drag of his cock sliding in and out of his hole making his back arch as his arms wrapped around Mitch’s shoulders, encouraging. One of Mitch’s hands was fisted in the sheets next to Willy’s head, the other wrapped around the top of Willy’s shoulder, stopping him from sliding away as Mitch drove into him over and over again. Willy was chanting under his breath, _come on, come on_, Mitch breathily agreeing as he fucked him faster, harder. Willy let go of Mitch with one hand, reaching between them to take ahold of his cock, stroking himself with fast, desperate movements as Mitch slammed into him over and over again until Willy’s eyes finally slid shut as he came with a low moan, spurting all over his own stomach. Mitch let out a sound like he had been punched, his movements frantic as he drove into Willy, chasing his own release. Willy just held on, let himself be used, let himself slide across the sheets as Mitch fucked into him again and again until he finally slowed, stilling, his cock twitching and jerking inside of Willy. They stayed like that for a long moment, both of their breaths harsh in the still air until Mitch smiled down at Willy, leaning down to press a quick kiss to his mouth. 

“Hey,” he said, and Willy couldn’t help but grin. 

“Hey,” he repeated back, voice slightly mocking. Mitch laughed, leaned back on his heels, grabbing the base of the condom as he let his softening cock slip from Willy’s hole. Willy was smiling up at him, opening his mouth to say– and then he heard a noise, and looked over to see one of the housekeepers standing in the doorway, a pile of towels in one hand and a shocked expression on her face. 

“Shit,” Willy said, kicking Mitch away from him, scrabbling to get the sheets up enough to cover himself even as he stumbled off the bed, hand held out in a pleading gesture. 

“Please,” he said, seeing Mitch grab a pillow to cover himself out of the corner of his eye. “Marie, please.” Marie shook her head, expression still open, shocked. Willy swallowed, refused to look over at Mitch. “Please,” he said again. 

“I don’t…” Marie said, clearly at a loss. 

“It’s not what it looks like,” Willy said, cursing himself for a stereotype, for ten different kinds of stupid even as the words fell out of his mouth. Mitch made a noise beside him, something small and strangled. 

“Ok,” Marie said, starting to back out of the room. “Ok, ok.” 

“Marie!” Willy said after her, but the door was already swinging shut, the woman disappearing from view. _”Fuck,”_ he said with feeling, letting his shaky legs give out, sitting down hard onto the bed. _”Fuck,_ he repeated, quieter, softer, already beginning to feel resignation filling his chest. Mitch’s touch, fingers on Willy’s bare shoulder, a couple of seconds later made him jump, made him tense further. 

“It’s ok,” Mitch said. “I’m sure she won’t tell anyone.” Willy groaned, leaning forward and letting his face fall into his hands. 

“You can’t know that,” Willy said. “She could be telling everyone on the staff right now.” _Could be telling Kyle_ he thought but didn’t say, as if speaking it might somehow make it more likely to become true. _God_ he hoped she wouldn’t tell Kyle. He’d rather have every single person on the property whisper about him until the day he died than see the look on Kyle’s face when he finds out what Willy has done – again. 

“I’m sure she isn’t,” Mitch said again, and Willy let himself, for a brief moment, embrace the comfort of that lie. 

They’d been having lunch, when Willy had realized that Kyle was fucking Kappy. 

Willy had been absently stirring his drink, paying more attention to the clink of the ice against the sides of the glass than the words coming out of Kappy’s mouth, some rambling story about his weekend, the usual slew of women, men, drugs, and clubs, when he suddenly stuttered over his words, the stumble just noticeable enough to break Willy out of his reverie. He looked up at him just in time to watch the way that a flush climbed up Kappy’s cheeks, to watch as his eyes shifted away from Willy as he fidgeted in his seat. 

“Uh yeah, anyways,” he finished awkwardly, “I just went home after that.” 

“You just went home?” Willy repeated, frowning. He admittedly hadn’t really been listening but that didn’t sound like Kappy, whatever the context. 

“Yeah,” Kappy shrugged, a movement that was clearly meant to be casual but instead came out jerky and unnatural. “Dunno, guess I wasn’t feeling like doing anything else that night.” Willy tilted his head in curiosity, observed the way that Kappy looked away from him, squinting across the bar as he picked up his drink and determinedly sucked on the straw. “Did you watch the Leafs game last night?” Kappy finally asked, gesturing towards one of the televisions across the room, showing a replay. The subject change might have been unremarkable in any other circumstance, Kappy prone to having his attention shift rapidly from one topic to the next, but–

“No,” Willy said. “Kyle came home late, and I forgot to put it on.” Kappy flinched when Willy said Kyle’s name and oh. _Oh._

Willy blinked, swallowed, picked up his own drink and took a sip. 

“Kyle’s been working late a lot lately,” he said with a sigh, keeping his expression carefully blank on the off chance Kappy decided to muster up the courage to look at him, which wasn’t looking very likely. “It’s hard, you know, not seeing him as much.” He kept staring at Kappy as he spoke, watching the other man’s face as the words slipped from his lips, an accusation wrapped up in pleasantries. “Sometimes he just stays downtown, sleeps in the condo. Which I get, but still, it’s nicer when he can be at home.” Unlike Kyle, or even Willy, Kappy had an absolutely atrocious poker face. The longer Willy spoke, the more pained the expression on his face, the more certain Willy became in his suspicion. He looked _guilty_, and Willy had to swallow down on a sudden wave of anger. 

“How about you?” he said, instead of any of the hundred things he wanted to say, the accusations he wanted to scream, the drink he wanted to throw in Kappy’s face. He wanted to make a scene, embarrass Kappy the way Kappy had embarrassed him, but that wasn’t how he did things, not as Willy and certainly not as Kyle’s William. “How’s Baloo?” he continued, “Still a monster?” Kappy turned back to Willy then, suddenly rediscovering the ability to meet Willy’s eyes as he scoffed at him. 

“Baloo is not a monster! Just because he jumped on you the one time–” Kappy kept talking, but Willy stopped listening as soon as he was certain that Kappy didn’t think anything was wrong, hadn’t realized how thoroughly he’d given away his and Kyle’s little game. It was easy enough for Willy to keep up the conversation on autopilot after that, most of his mind caught on a single, broken thought: _Kyle is cheating on me. Kyle is fucking my best friend. Kyle is cheating on me. Kyle is fucking my best friend._ It wasn’t fair, maybe, for it to hurt as much as it did, but it hurt anyways, like a punch to the chest, like a knife to the ribs. It felt like he spent the rest of the meal bleeding out all over the table without Kappy ever noticing a single thing was wrong. When he signed the bill, he saw that his hands were shaking. 

He said goodbye to Kappy outside of the restaurant with a hug and a promise to talk later, and Willy had to use every single ounce of practice he’d had meeting the worst upper class society had to offer at various events at Kyle’s side to stop himself from flinching away from Kappy’s touch, to keep his expression politely, insipidly happy. He watched as Kappy got into his car and disappeared from view with that same expression pinned to his face. It was only once he was gone that he let the mask slip, let the smile disappear like it had never been there in the first place. He thought about calling the driver to pick him up, going home, going back to _their_ home. Instead, he turned up the street, letting his feet guide him through the city, wandering aimlessly. He couldn’t _think_, couldn’t work past the initial frantic repetition, the why and the how and the when all mixing together into a muddying swirl, clogging up his mind. If he was hoping that walking would help him think, he was quickly proven wrong. If anything, the movement just made it worse, his feet picking up speed as his thoughts continued to circle and circle and circle and circle until– 

He sat down abruptly, his body thankfully managing to guide him to a bench on the edge of the sidewalk just before his legs lost all their strength. He sat there, gripping the wood so hard his knuckles turned white and stared down at the cement, trying to take deep breaths and watching as stains from old gum and the cracks in the sidewalk wavered in his vision instead. Fuck. _Fuck._

Kyle was cheating on him. 

Kappy was fucking his husband. 

_Fuck_.

There was some, maybe slightly less hysterical part of him that wondered if he didn’t deserve this for what he’d done to Kyle. In a voice that sounded suspiciously like his husband, that part of him reminded him that he’d been the one to cheat first, that he had let their driver fuck him with barely any provication, without any real reason other than what, Kyle being a less than ideally attentive husband? As if that was any excuse. Kyle’s accusations from that night rang in his ears – that Willy was just as much of a whore as he’d ever been, that he didn’t care who he hurt as long as _he_ got what he wanted, that he didn’t love Kyle, that he never had, had only been after his money and the life of luxury that marrying him bought him. None of those were true, of course, except that maybe Willy was a whore, for all he hated that word, hated the way that Kyle had spat it at him like a brand that Willy could never wash off. He wondered if he could level any of those accusations at Kyle now in turn, if he didn’t– if he didn’t love Willy, if he had never loved Willy. The thought sent a wave of nausea rolling through his stomach, and Willy had to swallow, hard. 

That was only one part of his mind, however. The rest of him was very firmly edging towards something more closely resembling an endless, furious internal scream. How _could_ he? How could either of them, his husband and best friend, and Kyle liked to make fun of Willy for living up to certain stereotypes, as if it was his fault that shopping was fun and having your nails done felt nice, and here Kyle was, fucking his best friend like the punchline to every joke about unfaithful husbands ever written by a lazy hack of a comedian. _At least it wasn’t his secretary_, Willy thought to himself, before wondering if it would have been the secretary, if Tamara wasn’t a woman, or if Kyle was less painfully gay. He shook his head at that thought, at the faint, following whisper of _what if there’s more_ and _what if this isn’t the first time_. He had a brief second, there and then immediately gone, where he wondered if maybe, maybe he hadn’t been the one to cheat first, if Kyle had beaten him to the punch, but then he remembered the look on Kyle’s face after he’d caught Willy and Patty together, and dismissed the thought altogether. It was infuriating though, knowing that Willy’s infidelity was probably exactly how Kyle had justified it to himself, maybe had even been why he’d done it. _Turnabout is fair play_, he could almost hear him say in his head. 

Willy sat on that bench that afternoon long enough to watch the shadows lengthen, wrap around his feet and blanket them in darkness. By the time he got off the bench, it was with the knowledge that he would never confront Kyle with what he knew. He didn’t want to hear what Kyle would have to say to him in return, and was too scared of what truths Kyle might speak.

He probably wouldn’t confront him about this either, he thought resignedly, frozen outside of Kyle’s study, hand still half-raised to knock. He’d been coming to– god he couldn’t even remember anymore, something, something that had seemed important enough to make him head home from Auston’s almost an hour earlier than he’d been planning to, some urgent thought driving him home long before he was supposed to be back, just in time to hear the familiar sounds of Mitch moaning, low and long, coming from behind the thick wooden door of Kyle’s study. 

The door was open a crack; careless, in a way that Kyle never was. Carless, in a way that spoke to desire overwhelming sense, to rushed words and panting breaths and clothing hastily shoved to the floor. It was the sort of careless that Kyle had only ever been with Willy, that Willy had assumed he would only _ever_ be with Willy. He never would have known, after all, about Kyle fucking Kappy if it wasn’t for Kappy’s remarkably poor ability to hide such a momentus secret. He had never – even after he’d found out, even after he’d started looking for it – caught so much as a flicker of that truth on Kyle’s face after all. Never a scent on his clothes, never a word out of place. Never anything, at all, to give truth to the lie embedded in every repetition of _I love you_ that fell from his mouth to Willy’s ears. 

Willy stepped forward before he could think better of it, careful to not make any noise as he finally caught sight of the inside of Kyle’s study. He couldn’t see all of them, the door barely open more than an inch or two, but he could see enough, could see Kyle sitting in his imposing chair, the one Willy had helped him pick out at an estate sale when they were redoing the study, its high back and wide seat perfect, apparently, for this – Mitch, his legs split apart over Kyle’s thighs, raising and lowering himself onto Kyle’s cock. Willy bowed his head and closed his eyes, a helpless, instinctual reaction, something deep within him trying to protect him from what was happening in front of him. He sucked in a harsh breath, once, twice, then opened them again. His gaze started on the floor just in front of him, crawled its way across the rug, each inch another moment where Willy could turn away, could walk away, but he didn’t, and eventually the shined toes of Kyle’s shoes slid into his vision. His legs were still covered in fabric and – as Willy’s eyes slowly worked their way up Kyle’s legs – he realized that opening up his pants to get his cock out was about all that Kyle had bothered to do. In the shadowed space between their bodies, the only thing he could see was the pink flash of Kyle’s cock, hard and shiny with lube as it slid in and out of Mitch’s body. Mitch wasn’t wearing anything on his lower half, and the way that the bottoms of his feet stuck out, bare toes hanging over the edge of the seat, struck Willy as strangely vulnerable. It was out of place, the feeling, at odds with the twist of his stomach when his eyes were drawn back to where the two men’s bodies were joined. The pink stretch of Mitch’s rim was as unfamiliar a sight to Willy as the sight of Kyle’s hard cock was a familiar one, the two a jarring combination that he couldn’t help but stare at until it felt like he couldn’t breath, until it felt like he would faint if he watched them any longer. He dragged his gaze away, finally, following the path of Mitch’s spine up until it disappeared into the tank top he was still wearing. Kyle was shirtless, at least, his chest barely visible behind Mitch’s torso, Mitch’s arms raised above his head to grip the back of the chair, using the sturdy wooden frame as leverage to help him as he slammed his body back onto Kyle’s cock over and over and over again. Willy couldn’t see Mitch’s face at all, could only see a wash of brown hair, wet and limp with sweat, swaying in front of his face as his entire body rocked with the force of his movements. He could see Kyle’s face though, just a sliver, just enough to see that he was looking up at Mitch with an intense look that Willy didn’t quite know how to read. They weren’t kissing, and Willy didn’t know if that made it better or worse as his husband stared up at the man riding his cock. 

He shouldn’t– he _couldn’t_ be mad about this, a betrayal so parallel to his own as to almost negate the first one. He wondered if Kyle knew that, if he was fucking Mitch in response to Willy fucking him, or if it was just incidental, an accidental shadow of the sin Willy had already committed. Mitch groaned, drawing Willy’s attention back to the scene unfolding in front of him. Mitch tilted his head back, and Kyle and Willy both watched the pale column of his throat work as he moved himself faster and faster, Kyle’s hands wrapped around his hips encouraging his movements. Willy swallowed, felt his cock twitch in his pants even as he fought back the urge to cry, to throw open the door and scream at his husband, at his– his _friend_, for what they were doing to Willy. But he couldn’t, not when he didn’t know if they actually _were_ doing it to Willy, that weren’t just fucking out of an independent desire for each other, a darkly comical echo of Willy and Mitch’s own affair that had no actual bearing on Willy’s behaviour. Though it was hard to imagine it didn’t, he thought to himself, watching as Mitch began to speed up, as his breath turned harsher, little ‘uh uh uh’s punctuating the smack of skin against skin. Hard to imagine that this had just _happened_, that Kyle somehow didn’t know exactly what was going on, what he was doing as his dick slid in and out of Mitch, as his grip tightened on his hips and he began to rock upwards to meet Mitch’s downwards thrusts. They were both getting close; Willy recognized the signs in both of them in a way that made his stomach twist even as his skin prickled with heat. 

“Fuck,” Mitch gasped out, slamming himself down one final time before staying there, shivering slightly. Willy watched as Kyle continued to roll his hips up, fingers dimpling Mitch’s skin as he took over all the work of moving his cock in and out of Mitch’s body. Kyle said something, too low for Willy to catch, but it made Mitch laugh and then twitch, clearly oversensitive even as he let Kyle continue to fuck him, slow and deep and unending. Mitch leaned down, kissed Kyle, open mouthed and easy and fuck him, _familiar_. Mitch had let go of the back of the chair at some point, Willy didn’t know when, had his hands now tangled in Kyle’s hair, cupping his jaw as he began to slowly grind in sync with Kyle. Kyle moaned at the movement, and when they broke apart again said something else that made Mitch laugh, loud, like he didn’t know that he had anything to be ashamed of, like he didn’t realize that what was happening should be hidden, belonged tucked into the shadows along with every other thing that Willy and Kyle had stopped talking about. 

Mitch tucked his head into the bend of Kyle’s neck, his spine arching as he hid his face. Willy’s eyes snagged on the long curve of it, the way he could see the knob at the top pushing at the constraints of Mitch’s skin. By the time he brought his eyes back to where he’d previously been looking, it was to find Kyle looking directly at him. Willy froze, breath catching in his lungs. The look Kyle gave him was so steady, so unabashed that Willy felt a hot rush of shame sweep through him, as if _he_ had been the one being caught in that moment, as if Willy, as the observer, was somehow the villain in this tableau that Kyle had crafted. Kyle blinked, unhurried and apparently utterly unsurprised, and then he smiled, slow, satisfied, accusing.

Willy turned and ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [twitter, DM if not obviously RPF, etc.](https://twitter.com/thotlander)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings in the end notes. thank you again to eliza for the beta... you are the absolute BEST

Mitch was gulping for breath, his hair swaying in and out of his vision as his entire body was rocked back and forth. His chest was smacking against the back of his hands where he had braced himself against the armrest of the couch, and when he tilted his head he could see the way his knuckles had turned white with how hard he was having to hold on to make sure he wasn’t shoved over the arm entirely. It wasn’t particularly comfortable, his arms shaking with the effort of holding himself in place, but he couldn’t get enough air to protest, couldn’t even string together a complete sentence in his mind to articulate his complaints before Kyle was shoving back inside of him and forcing every word out of his head. He could barely keep his eyes open, the carpet swimming in and out of his vision as his eyes slipped shut every time Kyle’s cock slid back into his body. It felt so fucking good, so perfect, that he couldn’t really do anything but hold on and let Kyle do whatever he wanted to him, let him drive his cock in and out of Mitch’s body over and over again. The harsh sound of Kyle’s hips hitting Mitch’s ass echoed in Mitch’s ears, the only thing he could hear over his own breath, loud and desperate. He needed to cum, needed Kyle to bring him over that edge, but also needed to never stop, to stay right here, Kyle fucking him over and over again forever, so good, fucking perfect. It was exactly what he needed, what he’d been craving, what he’d been looking for when he’d wandered through the house on his way home, pausing to lean in the doorway to Kyle’s office, shooting the other man a suggestive smile, lazy and insolent. Kyle had narrowed his eyes at him, shooting him a glare that Mitch supposed was meant to strike fear into his heart but at this point didn’t intimidate Mitch in the least, just made him smile wider. 

“Hey Kyle,” Mitch had said, which had just made Kyle frown harder. Kyle had never said as much aloud, but Mitch was pretty sure that Kyle still wanted him to call him Mr. Dubas, that it annoyed him when Mitch used his first name instead, but there was no way Mitch was going to keep calling him that after Kyle had put his cock inside of him. If Kyle wanted Mitch to actually stay as intimidated by him as he had been when he’d first met him, wanted him to keep using his last name and his last name only, he shouldn’t have ever fucked Mitch. There was a fundamental vulnerability about someone cumming inside you, having seen their o-face, that no amount of terrifying, powerful businessman vibes could overcome. Besides, it was kind of fun to annoy the older man. 

“Mitchell,” Kyle said, and Mitch just smiled wider. It was like the less formal he got, the more formal Kyle felt like he needed to be to compensate for it. He wondered if that was why Kyle only ever called Willy ‘William’, or if there was something else at play there, some other reason that he played that same game with his husband. 

“I’m just heading out,” he said, nodding his head vaguely towards the front of the house. “All finished with the pools.”

“Ok,” Kyle said, voice dry as dust, before he looked back down at the papers in front of him. Mitch waited him out, only fidgeting slightly as he waited for Kyle to react to his continued invasion of his space. Finally, Kyle looked back up, expression aggravated but unsurprised. Mitch bit down on the smile that wanted to break back out across his face. He knew that Kyle was in it now, even if he was still pretending not to be. “Do you need something?” he asked, and Mitch shrugged, shoving his hands into the pockets of his shorts and letting it stretch the fabric tight across his crotch, highlighting the bulge there. Kyle’s eyes didn’t move away from Mitch’s face, which was kind of impressive in its own right. Mitch licked his lips instead, watched as Kyle’s eyes finally did move, a quick flick down to Mitch’s lips and then back. 

“I asked you a question,” Kyle said, and Mitch felt heat surge in his stomach in the tone in his voice, harsh and commanding. 

“I heard you,” Mitch said, but didn’t move, didn’t say anything else. Kyle put his hands down on his desk, just hard enough to make Mitch flinch, to send his pulse racing. Kyle stood up, shoving his chair back and striding across the room. Mitch didn’t react, didn’t move as Kyle drew level with him, still leaning against the doorframe, hands stuck in his pockets. 

“I said, I asked you a question,” Kyle repeated, voice soft now that he was directly in front of Mitch. 

“Yeah,” Mitch said, eyes fixed on Kyle’s mouth. He couldn’t actually remember what Kyle _had_ asked, which was going to ruin the script slightly, but he figured Kyle would give him what he came for either way. He was right – it only took a couple of seconds of him not saying anything more before Kyle growled in frustration, gripping him by the arm and pulling him into the room, shutting the door behind him. 

“Take your clothes off,” Kyle said, and Mitch complied easily enough, pulling off his clothes while Kyle watched, his expression dark and severe. He was a hard man to read, Mitch had discovered; even like this, even with Mitch knowing that Kyle wanted him, there was part of him alight with the thrill of the possibility that he didn’t, that he would get Mitch naked just to humiliate him in some way, not to fuck him but to shame him, to refuse to touch him, to mock him for how desprate he was for it. “Hands and knees on the couch,” Kyle said, finally reaching up for the buttons on his own shirt, and Mitch obeyed easily, climbing onto the couch and watching out of the corner of his eye as Kyle took all of his clothes off, carefully folding them and setting them aside, as fastidious and particular as he ever was. The curtain was open on the windows in front of Mitch, and Mitch thought about mentioning it to Kyle, asking him to shut them, but there was something exciting about the thought of getting caught that held his tongue. He knew Willy didn’t like the exhibitionism thing, he’d been so embarassed the one time they’d been caught together, worried about their other employees gossiping about him fucking the pool boy or whatever, but Kyle… Kyle liked it, liked fucking Mitch when anyone could walk in on them, liked the risk of open curtains and unlocked doors. Mitch was honestly surprised that they hadn’t had Willy walk on them yet, either by accident or on purpose. He’d been tempted to bring it up a couple of times – after all, he’d played that game with Auston and Freddie plenty of times, Freddie feigning outrage when he’d walked in on Mitch sucking Auston off before joining in, Mitch pinned between the two of them, touching and being touched everywhere. He kind of missed it, the feeling of two bodies next to him, three people working together towards climax. He thought about it sometimes, especially when he was at home by himself, jerking off to the memory of Willy’s mouth around his cock or the harsh grip of Kyle’s hands on his hip, what it would be like if those two sensations were combined. The ease of sex with Willy alongside the harsh viciousness of sex with Kyle, the contrast between the gentle way Willy would suck Mitch’s lower lip into his mouth and the intense focus with which Kyle worked his cock inside of Mitch. Mitch wondered what they were like together too, if Kyle was more gentle with his husband or if he was the same no matter who he was fucking, if he would give it to Willy the same way he gave it to Mitch. 

The feeling of Kyle’s hand on his haunch jerked him out of his thoughts, brought him to the present, to the sensation of Kyle’s fingers digging into the pale skin of his ass, spreading them apart, exposing him to Kyle’s intense gaze. Mitch turned his head just enough to see the way that Kyle was looking at him, the darkness of his eyes, the way he loomed over Mitch, up on his knees while Mitch lowered his chest to the cushion of the couch, arching his spine and presenting himself for Kyle. Kyle’s eyes flicked up to Mitch’s, kept eye contact with him while he reached over to rub the dry pad of his thumb over Mitch’s hole, making Mitch shiver. 

“Is this what you wanted, slut?” he asked, his voice startlingly soft in contrast with the harsh way he’d spoken to Mitch earlier, with the words that were currently falling from his mouth. “Wanted to get on your knees for me?” 

“Yes,” Mitch said, the word almost a whisper. He was surprised at how rough his own voice had become. He licked his lips, swallowed, tried again. “Yes, yeah, this is what I wanted.”

“Yes what?” Kyle asked, and it took a second for Mitch to realize what the other man was looking for, and when he did he had to force himself not to groan, not to react. 

“Yes, sir,” he gasped out instead, shivered at the satisfied look that slid across Kyle’s face. The word might not do much for Mitch but god did Kyle make saying it worth it, and it was kind of hot, the reminder that Kyle was his boss, was a lot older than Mitch. _”Please,”_ he threw in for good measure, and was rewarded by the sound of Kyle swallowing, his fingers flexing against Mitch’s skin as he spread him even wider before dipping his head down. The drag of his tongue over Mitch’s hole drew a gasp from his throat, forced his eyes shut as he scrambled for something to hold on to, finally grabbing ahold of the armrest. He couldn’t do anything more than hang on as Kyle ate him out, gasping and twitching with the sensation of Kyle’s tongue sliding over his hole, dipping inside of him only to be replaced with one of Kyle’s fingers. His tongue continued to work alongside his finger, spit-slick as he pressed inside of Mitch. When he pressed in a second, suddenly and without warning, Mitch couldn’t help but moan, embarrassingly loud as he rolled his hips backward, encouraging, desperate. 

“God, Kyle,” he said, and Kyle’s tongue disappeared from his hole, though his fingers stayed, working in and out of Mitch’s hole. 

“Like that?” Kyle asked, and Mitch nodded, frantic. “Slut,” he repeated, but there was something resembling fondness lacing his words so Mitch didn’t take it too personally, just moved his hips backwards again, forcing Kyle’s fingers deep inside of himself. “Look so good like this,” Kyle continued, “fucking yourself on my fingers, so desperate for me. You want my cock Mitch?” Mitch groaned, nodded. 

“I didn’t catch that,” Kyle said, voice somewhere between cruel and teasing. 

“Yeah, yes, want your cock,” Mitch said. “Please, Kyle, fuck me.” Kyle just hummed, kept fucking Mitch with his fingers until Mitch finally groaned, giving in. “Please, sir, I need you. Need your cock, need you to fuck me. _Please_.” And that was apparently finally enough because Kyle spat into his hand, coating his cock. He pressed the head against Mitch’s hole, and Mitch shivered at the sensation, the promise of the blunt press of skin against skin. He could feel his body trying to open, trying to take Kyle inside of himself but Kyle didn’t press forward any more, just stayed there, rocking against Mitch, teasing.

“I can go get lube,” he said, but Mitch shook his head. 

“Fuck me,” he said, “fuck me, just like this, please, please. Sir.” There was a second where Kyle didn’t do anything, didn’t say anything, and Mitch worried that he wouldn’t go through with it, that he’d leave Mitch right there, desperate and empty, before suddenly he was moving, was pressing forward and Mitch was moaning as his body split open around him, his hole stretching, taking Kyle’s cock inside of him. Kyle moved into him in one slow, steady movement until he was fully seated inside of Mitch. He didn’t wait, Mitch still struggling to pull air back into his shocked empty lungs when he started up a steady rhythm, an inescapable slide of his cock in and out of Mitch’s hole, his body helpless to do anything but open up for him over and over again. 

“God,” Mitch gasped as Kyle moved in and out of him. “God, yeah, just like that. Kyle, fuck. So fucking good.” 

“Do you ever shut up,” Kyle said, thrusting forward harder, punctuating each word with the slap of his hips against Mitch’s ass.

“Why don’t you– ah! Why don’t you make me?” Mitch said, just to see what Kyle would do.

“Fucking…” Kyle muttered, adjusting his grip on Mitch’s hips, tugging his entire body backwards until his head was no longer hanging over the armrest, until Kyle could shove his shoulders down, press his face into the fabric of the couch as he rammed into him over and over again. Mitch was panting, hot, open mouth breaths against the fabric that smelt like Kyle’s cigars and Willy’s cologne. Kyle wasn’t being careful with him, in any sense of the word, and it was a thrill in its own right, to be fucked with so little care for his comfort, to be shoved and moved however the other man, however his _boss_ wanted him. 

“God, god, Kyle, I’m going to–” Mitch started to say, mumbling against the fabric and then suddenly Kyle was pulling out, making Mitch, embarrassingly, whine in protest. 

“Don’t you dare,” Kyle was muttering even as he pulled at Mitch’s hip, flipping him onto his back. “I am not having to get someone in to try and clean your cum out of this couch,” he said, sliding back inside of Mitch. “It is– fucking, jesus. It is an antique.”

“Yeah?” Mitch said, his brain having come back online a bit more thanks to the three seconds where Kyle wasn’t pounding into him. “Is it expensive?”

“Worth more than you,” Kyle said, and it was so offhand, so blunt, so callously sure of it’s accuracy that it made Mitch shiver. 

“Fuck,” he said, letting his head fall backwards. “Fucking, I– ah, god, Kyle, sir, _please_.”

“Touch yourself,” Kyle said. “But don’t get your fucking cum on my couch.” Mitch’s hand was around his own cock before Kyle had finished speaking, jerking himself off, fast and rough, too worked up to do anything but bring himself to that edge as fast as possible. It barely took a handful of strokes too, Kyle continuing to pound inside of him so perfectly, delicious pressure sliding over Mitch’s prostate on every other thrust. When Mitch came, it was with a whimper, barely managing to cup his palm over the head of his cock, catching his cum before it could spill anywhere other than on his stomach. He kept his hand there, pressed over the head of his still twitching cock and just watched as Kyle stared down at him with darkly shadowed eyes, as Kyle shoved into him over and over and over again until Mitch thought he might die if he kept going even a second longer, until Mitch would have sworn to anyone who asked that he never wanted to do anything else ever again and then finally, _finally_, Kyle was coming, cock twitching where it was buried deep inside of Mitch, spilling Kyle’s cum inside of him. 

“Fuck, fuck,” Mitch said, panting for breath, watching as Kyle leaned back onto his heels, Kyle’s own gaze fixed on his softening cock where it was sliding from Mitch’s used hole. He only spent a second staring once his cock was freed however, immediately bending over to grab Mitch’s discarded boxers from the floor. 

“Get dressed,” Kyle said, shoving them at Mitch. “I don’t want you dripping my cum all over my couch.” He glanced down to where Mitch’s hand was still resting protectively over his stomach. “Or yours,” he added, before standing up. 

“There’s such a thing as an afterglow you know,” Mitch said, making a face as he stuck his feet through the holes, tipping his hips up to pull them up the rest of the way. “You should try sometime.” He glanced over just in time to see Kyle giving him a deeply unimpressed look, which just made Mitch smile. Boxers on, Mitch let himself settle down into the couch, sighing happily as he closed his eyes. 

“What are you doing?” Kyle asked. 

“Resting,” Mitch said, not bothering to open his eyes. “I genuinely don’t think I can walk right now.” Kyle made an unimpressed noise, and when Mitch cracked his eye open to check, the other man was standing in the middle of the room, pants on but undone, looking at Mitch like he had no idea what to do with him or how to react to him which – yeah, Mitch got that look from people a lot. After a couple more seconds passed and it became clear that Mitch was not joking, and was definitely not planning on moving anytime, Kyle just shook his head, running his hand through his hair as he turned around, grabbing his shirt before returning to his previous position, before Mitch interrupted, sitting at his desk. Mitch would have thought that Kyle would have acted differently, with Mitch in the room, but maybe Kyle was just excellent at ignoring all outside distractions, because it wasn’t long before he was clearly engrossed back in his work. Mitch just lay there, watched as he flicked through page after page, mouthing words to himself as he made annotations to the papers in front of him. It wasn’t the same as before Mitch had interrupted him – Kyle hadn’t bothered to re-button his shirt for one thing, and he still had the red flush of exertion resting high on his cheeks – but it was remarkable how easily he slid back into his work, like it was a hundred times easier than talking to Mitch had been, easier even, maybe, than fucking Mitch. It was strange to witness, the transformation, the shift back into the cold perfection of the man that had hired Mitch in the first place, a bit disconcerting in its totality. He wondered which version of himself Kyle perceived as the more real version of himself, if either one was an act or if they were just separate pieces of the strange puzzle that was Kyle Dubas. He wondered which version of Kyle Willy got, or if it was a side that Mitch hadn’t yet seen, didn’t yet know. 

When he finally stood up and left, Kyle barely glanced at him, leaving Mitch feeling cold and strangely disconcerted. 

* * *

Travis reached out, poking Mitch in the side of the face. 

“Oh my god,” Mitch said, reaching out and swatting his roommate’s hand away from his face. “Leave me alone.” 

“I’m bored,” Travis said. “Entertain me.” 

“Entertain yourself,” Mitch said, not looking away from the TV. “Don’t you have homework you should be working on?” He could see Travis make a face out of the corner of his eye. 

“I don’t want to,” he said. 

“Yeah, and that’s why you’re having to take classes in the summer,” Mitch said dryly, swearing as his blood sprays across the screen in front of him, the camera jerking as bullets riddle his avatar’s body. 

“God you’re boring,” Travis said, instead of acknowledging Mitch’s very valid point. 

“There’s a second controller,” Mitch said. 

“I’m bored of video games,” Travis said, before suddenly launching himself upright, the abrupt movement finally serving to make Mitch look at him. “We should go out,” Travis said, eyes wide and alight with excitement. “We haven’t gone out in ages, you’ve barely been home.” 

“I’ve been working a lot,” Mitch said, letting his eyes slide back to the screen. Travis scoffed. 

“Sure yeah, _working_,” he said, throwing air quotes around the word. “Like lounging by a pool being eye candy for bored housewives is such hard work,” Mitch snorted, but Travis just kept talking, unfazed. “C’mon, you haven’t been out with the guys in forever. I’ll text everyone, we can go out to Jack Astors, get wasted on fishbowls.” Which… 

“I do like fishbowls,” Mitch conceded, pausing the game to look at his friend. He sighed, recognizing the resolute expression on Travis’ face. “You’re not going to let this go are you?” he asked, and was unsurprised when Travis shook his head no. “Fine,” he said, and tried not to smile as Travis shouted in victory, pumping his fist and simultaneously pulling his phone out of his pocket with his other hand. Mitch watched his character respawn on screen as Travis bent over his phone, finally falling silent for several long minutes. Mitch had almost gotten the rest of the way through the level before Travis spoke again. 

“Ok,” he said, voice filled with satisfaction as he looked up from his phone. “The guys are going to meet us in an hour, so we’ll have lots of time to change and get there.”

“Ok,” Mitch said, not bothering to look away from the screen. He could feel Travis’ eyes on him though, and only lasted a couple of minutes before he finally gave in and turned to the other man. _”What_,” he said. 

“Wanna take a shot before we leave?” Travis asked. 

“Oh my god,” Mitch said, finally pausing the game, throwing his controller onto the coffee table and fully giving in to his fate. “Fine, but no tequila.”

“No tequila,” Travis said, face serious as he nodded his agreement.

* * *

_”Tequila!”_ Travis yelled, throwing up his hands as the waitress reached the table. Mitch whooped, almost knocking Auston out of his seat as he reached for his shot glass. He ignored the look Auston shot him, just licked the back of his hand, sprinkling salt over it before handing the shaker over to Mo, who mirrored his movements.

“C’mon Matty,” he said, nudging at Auston’s shoulder until the other man gave in and smiled, picking up his own glass with a reluctance that Mitch knew was feigned. 

“Ok but this is the only one. I can’t stay out too late,” he warned, even as he plucked the lime wedge off the top of his glass. Mitch opened his mouth just in time to join Mo and Travis in booing Auston in sync. Auston just rolled his eyes, licking the salt off his hand and forcing the other guys to abruptly stop booing as they rushed to catch up so they could all take their shots at the same time. The tequila burned as it entered his throat, only somewhat eased by the tang of the lime squeezed between his teeth, chasing it down. 

“You’re so boring now,” Mitch said, leaning his shoulder into Auston’s so he knows that Mitch doesn’t really mean it. 

“You used to be the best of all of us,” Mo said mournfully, shaking his head. “Remember the time he drank an entire 2-6 to himself?” Travis shot him an incredulous look. 

“Do _you_?” he asked. “I’m pretty sure you didn’t even make it out of the dorms that night.” Mo waved his hand, dismissive. 

“Not the point,” he said. “The point is that Matty’s gotten boring.” 

“I’m not boring,” Auston grumbled, taking a sip of his water. “I’m just… I have kids now.” 

“Yeah, cuz you’re married and boring,” Travis said, voice overly slow, patronizing in a way that caused Auston to kick at him under the table, all of their drinks bouncing as he hit the leg of the table instead. 

“Motherfucker,” Auston said, wincing as the other guys laughed at him. 

“That’s what you get,” Travis said, voice taunting. “Maybe if you hadn’t married an old man you’d still be able to keep up with us young, hip guys.” 

“Freddie is _not_ old,” Auston said, face flushing. 

“I mean, he lowkey is,” Mitch said, throwing up his hands in surrender when Auston turned his glare towards him. “I’m not saying that like it’s a bad thing! I”m just saying that you married a dude who’s almost ten years older than you.” 

“I mean the good news is that you definitely married up.” Mo said. “Like, an architect? I’ve never been prouder than when you brought him home for the first time.” 

“Brought him ho– you know you’re not actually my dad, right?” Auston said, voice dry. Mo pressed a hand to his chest, face moulding itself into an expression of shock as he gasped loudly. 

“How could you,” he said. “After all I’ve done for you–”

“Literally nothing.” 

“–you speak to me like this–”

“Because you’re an asshole.” Mo shook his head. 

“The disrespect,” he said, and Auston rolled his eyes at him. 

“Whatever, like you’re one to talk. What was it that you were saying the other weekend? Tessa–” 

“Tessa’s just sooooo perfect,” Mitch said, interrupting. 

“She’s soooooo beautiful,” Travis said, jumping in. 

“Oh my god,” Mo said. 

“I just love her sooooo much guys,” Mitch said. 

“I think she’s the one,” Auston said. 

“She’s my soulmate,” Travis sighed, leaning his head on his hands, elbows on the table, a far-away expression on his face. 

“Fuck off I did not say that,” Mo said. Mitch shrugged. 

“It was subtextual,” he said, “we’re just reading between the lines.” Mo turned his attention to him. 

“Well what about you Mitch?” 

“What about me?” Mitch asked, not sure where Mo was going with this but immediately feeling a bit defensive anyways. 

“Well Auston’s an old married man–”

“Shut _up_.” 

“–and Travis’ girlfriend is still sticking with him for some unknown reason.”

“And I’m both shocked and grateful for that fact every day,” Travis said. 

“Maybe we should start setting Mitchy up on dates,” Mo said, “I’m worried about him, all alone.”

“I’m not alone!” Mitch protested, feeling his face beginning to heat, but it was too late, the entire group’s attention had turned towards him.

“Uh,” Travis said, “hate to break it to you bro, but you don’t bring anyone home, literally ever.” 

“Yeah because I don’t want to have to subject them to _you_.”

“See, this is what I’m saying. There’s no way you’re getting any,” Travis continued, unfazed, “not with how much of a bitch you are.” Mitch flipped him off, before picking up his glass and taking a large gulp of the overly-sweet drink. Auston watched him, a considering expression on his face that made Mitch slightly nervous. 

“What?” he said, voice coming out far more defensive than he would have liked it to. 

“You are getting some,” he said. 

“No I’m–” Mitch started, trailing off as he glanced over at Travis, at the smile stretched across his face. “Or like, I am but it’s not– I can’t talk about it.” 

“Oh my god,” Mo said at the same time that Travis spoke. 

“I knew it!” They all turned to look at him as he pointed at Mitch, accusatory. “You _are_ sleeping with some bored housewife.” Mitch rolled his eyes. 

“One, you’ve never said that before so you can’t say you knew shit,” Travis opened his mouth to argue but Mitch just kept talking. “Two, I’m gay.” 

“So you’re fucking someone’s husband,” Travis said, undeterred. Mitch shrugged, smiled. He shouldn’t have, he knew that even as he did it, but it was too funny, watching the way that Travis and Mo’s eyes widened at the same time. Auston was absolutely rigid in his seat beside him though, and it took Mitch a second to realize why. He nudged his knee against his friend’s under the table, and the unspoken reassurance was apparently enough for him to relax slightly, to join in on the chirping. 

“Wow Mitch, didn’t know you had it in you,” Auston said, and Mitch shrugged again, smiling wider at the surprised expressions on his friends’ faces. 

“That’s a bit…” Mo started, his voice cautious and oddly serious. “Mitch, are you joking?” 

“No,” Mitch admitted before he could think better of it, alcohol sending the word skittering off of his tongue and into the suddenly still air. 

“Oh woah,” Travis said. 

“Jesus dude,” Mo said. “That’s like… I dunno.” 

“It’s fine,” Mitch said, barely stopping himself from rolling his eyes at the look Mo and Travis exchanged. “Seriously guys, it’s fine. His husband knows.”

“His husband?” Travis said, voice overlapping with Mo’s incredulous _what_. Auston shifted next to him, and Mitch hurried to continue, to reassure his friend that he wasn’t about to out him without his permission. 

“Ok seriously you guys can’t tell anyone,” Mitch said, lowering his voice. “But yeah, lowkey, this couple that I work for, that I clean their pools… I’m maybe, sort-of, hooking up with them.”

“Holy shit dude,” Travis said, sounding kinda impressed. “Like, threesomes? Wait, how do gay threesomes even work.”

“Oh my god,” Mo said as Auston put his face in his hands. 

“I’m just asking!” Travis said, “like, that’s a lot of dicks in one bed and–”

“Please stop talking,” Mitch said, interrupting him before he could say anything too stupid. “No, I haven’t had any threesomes with them.” He could see the last of the tension drain from Auston’s shoulders at the unspoken reassurance that Mitch really wasn’t talking about him and Freddie. 

“But you are fucking both of them,” Mo said, and Mitch nodded. 

“And they both know?” Travis asked, his voice curious. 

“Obviously,” Mitch said. “I wouldn’t do it otherwise.”

“Wow,” Travis said, voice back to sounding impressed. “Who knew our own little Mitch Marner was this kinky.” 

“Sleeping with two people is not kinky,” Mo said. 

“It is if they’re married,” Travis argued. 

“What? No it’s not. What would that even change?” Travis shrugged. 

“I don’t know, maybe it’s like, a sexy little game for them.” He turned back to Mitch. “Is it a sexy little game?” 

“Jesus Christ,” Auston muttered. 

“I’m not talking to you anymore,” Mitch said.

“C’mon Mitchy, I just wanna know. Are they like, playacting at being cuckolded or something?” Travis asked, and Auston stood up so abruptly that he almost knocked over his own drink. 

“Bathroom,” he said, turning and leaving. 

“Yeah, me too,” Mitch said, taking the chance to escape, sliding out of the booth after Auston. 

“You’re not getting out of this!” Travis shouted after him as he trailed Auston across the restaurant. “I’ll get my answer one way or another!” Auston glanced back over his shoulder at that, slowed to let Mitch catch up to him. 

“Sorry,” Mitch said. Auston shrugged, pushing open the bathroom door and holding it as Mitch followed him through. 

“Don’t be sorry, you didn’t do anything.” 

“No but I stressed you out and made you think I was gonna,” Mitch said. Auston shrugged again, unbuttoning his pants and going to stand in front of a urinal. He glanced at Mitch when the other man didn’t make a move to do the same, just leaned against the edge of the sink. Mitch waved a hand at him. 

“Don’t mind me,” he said, “I just wanted to apologize and get away from Travis.” Auston laughed. 

“So are you actually sleeping with a married couple?” 

“Other than you and Fred you mean?” Mitch said, grinning when Auston shot him an unimpressed look. “Not that we’re fucking much now anyways, since you guys decided to be old and boring and only get up enough energy to have a threesome what, once a yea– oh my god _gross_.” Mitch broke off as Auston, finished peeing, rubbed his hand over Mitch’s face on his way over to the sink. 

“You started it,” Auston said placidly as he turned on the tap. “So? Are you?” Mitch paused, debated with himself about telling Auston for a moment. Auston knew how to be discrete though, knew how to keep this particular secret, and Mitch truly was dying to talk to someone else about this – he had so many great sex stories stored up at this point, and no one to tell them to. He could probably trust Auston with this, although– 

“Yeah,” he said. “But seriously Auston, you can’t tell anyone.”

“Yeah for sure,” Auston said, face alight with curiosity. 

“Not even Freddie.” 

“Mitch,” he said. “I’m gonna tell Fred.” Mitch shook his head. 

“You _can’t_,” he said, and Auston frowned at him. 

“Why can’t I tell Fre– oh my god.” Auston’s eyes widened. 

“What?” 

“Oh my god! You… you’re fucking Willy! Oh my god, you’re fucking _Kyle_.”

“What!” Mitch said, though it came out more like a yelp than an actual word. “I didn’t– what, no, I didn’t say that!”

“Your face! Oh my god. Oh my god, that’s why you don’t want me to tell Freddie! Because you’re literally fucking our neighbours!” 

“I’m not–” Mitch started then stopped, taking in Auston’s surprised expression, the certainty behind the shock. He sighed, started again. “Ok but like seriously, _no one_ can know about this.”

“Dude,” Austons said, voice turning affronted. “You know you can trust me.” Mitch shrugged awkwardly because yeah, he knew that, but this was huge, this was the sort of gossip that could cost someone their job and their friends and who knows what else. Auston and Mitch stared at each other for another long second before Auston blew out a long breath. 

“Jesus dude,” he said, “I can’t believe you’re fucking _Kyle_.”

“Why do you keep saying it like that?” 

“Like what?”

“_Kyle_,” he mimicked. Auston gaped at him for a second before making a vague, abstract gesture. “_What_?” Mitch repeated. 

“Y’know,” Auston said, “he’s _Kyle_.”

“Dude I swear to god…”

“He’s like, _terrifying_,” Auston said, interrupting, and Mitch felt his eyes widen without his permission. 

“What?” 

“Shut the fuck up you don’t think so too.”

“Yeah sure like, at first.”

“At first?” Auston said, way too loud. “I’ve known him for like three years! And I still think he’s scary!”

“Aren’t you friends with Willy?” Mitch asked, and Auston made another vague gesture, his expression disbelieving . 

“Yeah, but he’s Willy! Willy couldn’t be scary if he tried.”

“Yeah and he’s married to Kyle!”

“That’s not–” Auston started then broke off, shaking his head. He ran a hand back through his hair, stared at Mitch silently for a long, tense moment. “Dude. I can’t believe you’re boning Kyle Dubas.” Mitch snorted, and Auston gave him an incredulous look. 

“Boning. God he’d hate to hear it described like that,” Mitch said, and Auston gave him a pained look. 

“Please don’t tell him I said that,” he said, and Mitch shook his head. 

“I’m not telling him about _any_ of this.” Mitch said. “Are you fucking kidding me? He’d kill me.”

“Yeah no shit,” Auston said, “and fucking good, because there’s no fucking way I’m ever bringing it up with him. Or Willy,” he added. 

“Not even when you’re getting your nails done or your assholes waxed together?” Auston gave him another pained look. 

“Dude, I told you that in confidence.” 

“Yeah, and that’s why I haven’t told anyone! I did notice it though, did you know Willy also–”

“No!” Auston interrupted, pointing at him. “Absolutely the fuck not, stop right there. I want to be able to look him in the eyes the next time I see him, thank you very much.” Mitch bit his lip trying to hide his smile, and Auston’s expression softened, shifted. 

“Are you like, ok dude?” he asked. “They’re like, I dunno, treating you ok?” 

“Huh? Oh yeah, it’s fine,” Mitch said, waving a hand. Auston didn’t look convinced. 

“Are you sure? You’re like, their employee dude, I don’t think–” Auston cut himself off as the door swung open and a man in a suit walked in. He gave them a curious look before heading for a urinal, so Mitch pushed himself off of the counter, heading back out into the restaurant, Auston following after him. He got as far as where the hallway to the bathroom opened up to the main part of the restaurant before Auston caught up with him, reaching out and grabbing a hold of his arm. 

“Seriously dude,” he said, staring way too intensely into Mitch’s face in a way that made Mitch abruptly very aware of how much both of them had had to drink. “If either of them ever… I dunno, if you feel like it’s… just be careful? And let me know if you ever… if you ever need anything, I’m here for you.”

“Thanks bro,” Mitch said, voice sarcastic but still feeling oddly touched. Auston was weird, and dumb, but he was also Mitch’s best friend, and it made something warm bloom inside of him to be reminded of how deeply Auston cared about him, about how protective he could be of Mitch. He patted the hand that Auston had on his wrist. “Seriously, like, I will, but I’m _fine_.” Auston still didn’t look convinced so Mitch mentally shrugged, and kept going. “More than fine really, you would not _believe_ the things that Kyle will do in bed. I think all that time in a suit makes him all pent up beca–” Auston dropped his hand, and started walking away without saying anything, leaving Mitch to chase after him, trying to keep his voice down but still loud enough for Auston to hear. “–and the things he will do with his tongue dude, you can’t even–”

“I hate you so much,” Auston said without turning around. “I hate you more than I’ve ever hated anyone else, on the entire planet, ever.”

“No you don’t,” Mitch said cheerfully, and then they were back at the booth, and the conversation died as they slid back into their side of the booth, Mo and Travis barely acknowledging their arrival as they continued to discuss– black holes? Or maybe a book about black holes? Mitch picked his abandoned drink back up, took a sip and almost winced at the reminder of how sugary it was. He felt a foot hit his leg and he looked over to see Auston giving him a questioning look. Mitch smiled at him, nodding slightly, _all good_, and Auston smiled back at him, turning back to their friends. 

“What the fuck are you nerds talking about?” he said, and Mo and Travis turned to him with identical offended expressions on their faces. 

“First of all, the only nerd here is Mo–,” Travis started, at the same time that Mo said,

“There’s nothing wrong with being interested in things–” Mitch laughed, taking another drink and just letting his friend’s voices wash over him. 

* * *

Mitch wouldn’t say he _loved_ giving head. 

He was _good_ at giving head, and he wouldn’t hesitate to prove it to anyone who ever said otherwise. 

But he didn’t _love_ it. 

“No one loves it,” he’d said to Willy earlier. Willy had shot him a look, half disbelieving, half amused. 

“I do,” he’d said, and Mitch wasn’t too proud to admit that he’d maybe gaped at him a bit. 

“Why?” he’d finally asked, and Willy had laughed at him. 

“It’s powerful,” he said, “and really satisfying. Watching Ky– watching someone come apart because of you like that, being able to take everything they give you and wear them down to nothing, until they can’t even form words, until they can’t think about anything other than _you_ and the pleasure you’re choosing to give them.” Mitch wasn’t sure what his face was doing, but it made Willy laugh again. 

“You’re putting way too much thought into BJs,” he finally said. 

“Maybe you’re just not putting enough thought into them,” Willy challenged back, words still tinged with laughter, and it made Mitch laugh in turn. 

Talking to Willy was always so much _fun_. 

He was so different from anyone else Mitch had known before. No matter how often he teased Auston about being a trophy husband, that had never been him and Freddie. Willy though, Willy was an honest-to-god trophy husband, in a way that was written into every part of his behaviour and dress, from his perfectly manicured nails to his frankly, amazing, hair, to the very ugly and probably therefore horribly expensive clothing he wore. Not that Mitch would ever say as much to his face but it wasn’t exactly subtle. Plus there was the time that Willy had casually mentioned that he had met and married Kyle when he was nineteen _(nineteen!!!)_ and that he had never actually worked, after he finished his degree. 

“Does that make you sad?” Mitch had asked when Willy told him that. Willy had looked surprised, like maybe no one had asked him that before.

“Not really,” he’d said slowly, carefully, like he was really thinking about it, like he wanted to give Mitch a real answer and not just whatever pre-planned response he had on hand for questions from, what Willy had referred to, at various points in time, “the evil vultures at the country club”, “the cunts at the neighbourhood association”, and “the overly botoxed psychopaths on the gala committee”. “When I first started my degree I had ideas about what I might do with it, half-formed thoughts but like, nothing concrete, and when I met Kyle, when I fell in love with him and realized what being with him, what being married to him would mean, I was just kind of like ok, this is what I do now.” 

“Huh,” Mitch had said, and Willy had flushed. 

“That probably sounds stupid,” he’d said, voice turning harsh but in a way that Mitch didn’t think was directed at him. “Like I’m some… like I gave up everything, gave up my independence and who I was and everything about myself for a _man.”_ There was scorn in his voice, and Mitch had wondered exactly how many people had said that to Willy over the years, how many people had looked at him and seen nothing but a beautiful, empty shell that existed only for his husband to show off. 

“I don’t think that,” Mitch had said, voice cautious, and Willy had let out all of his breath at once, in a rush, as if suddenly reminded of who he was talking to. 

“Yeah,” he had said smiling at Mitch, “and that wasn’t… I didn’t give up anything. I gained something. I got Kyle.” Something in his expression had flickered then, something Mitch couldn’t quite read.

That happened a lot with Willy – Kyle too. Mitch wasn’t sure he’d ever met two people harder to read than the two of them, little micro expressions sliding across their faces so fast that Mitch could never quite get a good read on them. It was fun in a way, trying to figure out what they were thinking, both of them always somehow managing to surprise him with what they’d do next, never quite lining up with what he was expecting. Of course, that was only when he was talking to them, trying to parse apart their words and their expressions and the way they stood and moved and acted to find the real people lying buried underneath all that wealth, all those expectations. 

This, this was simpler, easier. This was Willy lying on his back on one of the chaises by the indoor pool, looking down at Mitch with half-lidded eyes as Mitch licked up the side of his cock. There wasn’t any guesswork involved in the hitch in Willy’s breath, the way his lips parted slightly as Mitch turned his head, licked up the other side, a slow tease. His knees were already killing him, kneeling on the cold tile, but it was too perfect, this moment, the sound of the rain hitting the long wall of windows across the pool from them, to interrupt it to ask Willy to throw him a cushion. It felt suspended, like they had somehow managed to stumble to somewhere just to the left of reality, like the whole world had paused, holding its breath as Mitch moved his hand ever so slightly up and down at the base of Willy’s cock, as he continued to lick up and down the shaft, watching the way Willy’s chest moved as he breathed, deep and slow and ok. Maybe he could see what Willy meant, when he talked about power and control because there was something intoxicating about the way Willy was reacting to him, the way he was just lying there, still and waiting beneath Mitch’s hands. Or maybe it was just Willy, with his golden hair and tanned skin, his thickly muscled thighs bracketing Mitch’s shoulders, the heat coming off his skin despite the chill of the room, the summer storm that had surged out of nowhere and driven Willy inside, to where Mitch was cleaning the indoor pool having sucked all the warmth from the room. Leaving Willy and Mitch to create their own warmth, to stoke heat between them, the hot kisses that they’d traded before Mitch had pushed Willy towards the chair, before Willy had pushed him downwards in turn. 

When Mitch finally took the head of Willy’s cock into his mouth, Willy made a noise, abrupt and bitten off and Mitch had to fight against his urge to smile as he let Willy slide further inside of his mouth. Willy’s cock was soft and heavy against his tongue and so fucking hot. Mitch didn’t take much more than the head inside of his mouth though before he slid back off, forcing another noise from Willy as he did so, this one a protesting grumble that made Mitch smile for real. He let his head duck down until he could plant his tongue at the root of Willy’s cock, dragging it up the entire length in one long, slow motion, pressing a kiss to the head when he finally reached it. 

“Sorry, did you say something?” he asked, smiling wider at the unimpressed look that Willy shot him down the length of his body. Willy’s arms had snaked above him to grab ahold of the top of the chaise, a grounding motion that made something hot spark deep within Mitch. His own hands were divided, one digging into the meat of Willy’s thigh, his own sort of grounding touch even as the other held Willy’s cock steady, moving up and down the shaft just enough that Willy couldn’t claim Mitch wasn’t doing _anything._

“Mitch,” Willy said; a warning, a plea. Mitch thought about teasing him some more but he wanted too badly himself to keep this going – he wanted to taste Willy, to feel the weight of his cock on his tongue, to hear the noises he made as he fell apart beneath him. Mitch swallowed the saliva that had pooled in his mouth at the thought and leaned forward again, licking over the head of Willy’s cock one final time before finally taking him into his mouth, letting him slide back, the head of his cock pressing against Mitch’s tongue as he sank further and further down until he could feel the fluttering warning of his gag reflex beginning to activate. He eased off just as slowly as he’d sunk down, savouring the way that Willy moaned above him, a small, helpless noise. Mitch didn’t let the head of Willy’s cock slip from his mouth, kept it there, his lips sealed around it as he teased at the slit, tasted the salt that was blooming there. He took a deep breath, preparing to lean forward again when he heard a noise from behind him, felt the muscles of Willy’s thigh jerk and tense beneath his hand. He pulled off with a sense of dread, already mentally bracing for the experience of facing another scandalized staff member, of having to calm Willy down as he panicked at whatever threat he thought his employees presented to him. Despite that, he kept his hands where they were as he turned his head to look back over his shoulder, hoping that maybe he was wrong, that maybe something had just blown against one of the windows or something, startling Willy. 

He turned, and saw that he wasn’t completely wrong. 

It wasn’t a member of the household staff. 

It was Willy’s husband. 

Kyle cut an imposing figure, standing by the edge of the pool in his suit, black tie tight against his throat, his hands shoved deep within his pants pockets as he stared down at them. His expression was impassive, impossible to read, a familiar blank storminess. Mitch smiled at him, reflexive, the blankness of his face no deterrent for the little jerk of happiness that seeing him provoked within Mitch’s chest. 

“Kyle,” Mitch said, and Kyle’s eyes flicked away from where they’d been fixed behind Mitch – on Willy, he assumed. “Good to see you.” Kyle’s face twitched, a weird expression that Mitch couldn’t parse, there and then gone just as fast. Mitch licked his lips, letting his eyes slide up and down Kyle’s body. God, he didn’t know how Kyle always managed to look so fucking good in his suits, standing ramrod straight like the stick that he had up his ass was a physical reality, forcing him to hold himself stiff and still. It was weirdly hot, and Mitch was starting to kinda worry he was developing some sort of weird kink about it. Kyle still hadn’t said anything, nor had Willy, still unmoving beneath Mitch’s hands, and Mitch… Mitch had always assumed they just weren’t interested in having a threesome, since they’d never initiated one, but with Kyle standing here, watching them, Mitch couldn’t help but wonder… “Care to join us?” he asked before he could think better of it, enjoying the way that Kyle’s eyes widened slightly at the invitation. His eyes flicked back to his husband, and Mitch had to fight the urge to follow his gaze, to look at Willy. He figured if Kyle was checking in with his husband, Mitch didn’t need to do the same, and he was too anxious waiting for Kyle’s reaction to look away from him anyways. From behind him, Willy didn’t say anything but whatever Kyle saw on his face must have been enough for him, because he stepped closer to them. He still didn’t say anything, just sat down on the chaise next to them, carefully smoothing out his trousers before leaning forward, resting his forearms on his thighs, gaze intense and unreadable. Mitch swallowed, licking his lips, before finally looking back at Willy. Willy looked shocked, eyes round, and maybe a little bit… afraid? Nervous? Mitch shot him what he hoped was a reassuring smile, thought about whether or not he should ask him if he was ok with this, wondered suddenly if he’d read this wrong, if Kyle sitting down hadn’t meant what he’d assumed, if– but then Willy smiled back at him, small but honest, and Mitch felt himself relax, smiling wider on reflex. He thought about saying something but he didn’t know what he’d say so instead he just leaned forward again, dragging his tongue over the head of Willy’s cock. Willy’s erection had flagged slightly while they’d talked, but that was ok. Mitch was more than happy to get him there again, working his fist over the base of Willy’s cock as he took the head back into his mouth, sinking down and down until Willy was gasping above him. Mitch let his eyes slide shut, let himself sink into the moment, into the sounds Willy was making, the sensation of his cock pressing against Mitch’s tongue, the muscles in his thigh jumping beneath Mitch’s hand, the taste of skin and salt and _Willy._ The knowledge that Kyle was there too, was watching as Mitch sucked his husband’s cock kept sparking bright in the back of his head, making Mitch’s own cock ache where it was trapped in his shorts, but he didn’t want to let go of Willy to touch himself, didn’t want to subsume a second of Willy’s reactions to his own pleasure. 

Kyle being there with them must have been doing just as much for Willy as it was for Mitch, because it wasn’t long before he was fully hard again, before his hand snaked down to grip Mitch’s hair, a warning and an encouragement spurring Mitch on. Mitch chased that warning down, sucking harder, sliding down further, until all he could hear over the wet sounds being forced from his mouth, the sound of the rain still steadily hitting against the windows, was Willy’s broken moans, the hitches in his breath as Mitch brought him closer and closer to the precipice. When he came it was with a moan, loud and shameless as his cock jerked and spilled against Mitch’s tongue. Mitch pulled off just in time to catch the last couple of spurts on his cheek, working Willy through the last of his orgasm with his hand as he swallowed the cum that had landed in his mouth. He loved the way Willy looked when he came, face flushed and pale eyelashes resting against his cheeks as his chest heaved and he struggled to catch his breath. Mitch kept up the movement of his hand on Willy’s cock until the other man let out a noise closer to a whine, and then he finally let go, hand automatically dropping down to his own crotch, pressing down on his aching cock. There was the sound of rustling fabric to the side of them and Mitch looked over. While him and Willy had been occupied, Kyle had taken off his tie, had rolled his shirt sleeves up over his elbows, but was otherwise still in the same position he’d been in the last time Mitch had looked at him – leaning forward, staring intently at the tableau that Mitch and Willy had created between the two of them. 

“Kyle…” Mitch started, not sure what he was going to say, no plan for what might come next. Kyle seemed to have his own thoughts though, because the other man stood up, walked over to where Mitch was still kneeling between Willy’s thighs. His grip on the back of Mitch’s neck was harsh, made Mitch’s breath catch in his throat as he struggled against limbs locked in one position for far too long, stumbling to his feet, following the tugging of Kyle’s arm up and up until he was standing in front of the other man. His own eyes were wide as he watched Kyle examine his face, his face completely blank as he moved his grip to Mitch’s chin, tilting his face to the side, forcing his gaze back towards Willy. Mitch felt his face heat at the realization of what Kyle was looking at – Willy’s cum slowly sliding down the side of his face. He was still staring at Willy, propped up on his elbows with his legs still splayed wide, face flushed as he took deep breaths and stared back at Mitch when he felt something warm and wet against his face. His entire body jerked as Kyle licked Willy’s cum off of Mitch’s cheek, watched Willy’s eyes widen in mirror of his own. Mitch’s hands flew out of their own accord, grabbing ahold of Kyle’s waist as he passed his tongue over Mitch’s face once, twice more before finally pulling back. There was a distant rumble of thunder as Mitch turned his head back to meet Kyle’s eyes. 

“Take off your clothes,” Kyle said, a familiar instruction, the first words he’d said since he’d stumbled upon them, and Mitch’s breath caught in his throat. He stepped back, pulled off his shirt, hooked his fingers in the band of his shorts, started to pull them down when–

“Kyle,” Willy said, and Mitch paused, shorts just over his hip bones to look over at the other man. Willy wasn’t looking at Mitch though, his eyes fixed on his husband. His expression was… Mitch didn’t know what to make of the look on Willy’s face, wasn’t something he’d ever seen on the other man’s expression before. That same fear from earlier was back, and something else too, something pained and cracked open and nameless. Mitch swallowed, began to ease his shorts back up. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea, not without them all talking about it before, especially if Kyle and Willy had never talked about it before on their own, which Mitch was starting to get the sense they hadn’t. 

“William,” Kyle said, voice deep and rough with arousal and maybe something else. Mitch’s eyes flicked back to Willy in time to see something like resignation slide over his expression before it shuttered completely, became unreadable. 

“Um,” Mitch started. “Maybe I should just–”

“No,” Kyle interrupted, his eyes sliding back to Mitch. 

“I don’t think...” Mitch started, eyes flicking back and forth between the two men. “I mean, this seems a bit…” 

“It’s fine,” Kyle said at the same time that Willy spoke–

“It’s ok Mitch,” he said, and it was the smile on Willy’s face that managed to drain the tension from Mitch’s spine, washed the protest from his mouth. Willy licked his lips, looking at Kyle and then back at Mitch. He nodded towards Mitch. “You should do what Kyle says,” he said, and that was… that made Mitch’s mouth go dry, as he looked back at Kyle, who was staring at him with his typical intense gaze. 

“I told you to take off your clothes,” Kyle reminded him, and Mitch didn’t hesitate this time, sliding his shorts and briefs off in a single motion until he was standing naked in front of the other two men. Mitch shivered as the chill in the air hit him fully, suddenly very aware of the vulnerability of him and Willy being there, naked, while Kyle, still fully clothed except for his tie, dragged his eyes across both of their bodies. 

“Get on your hands and knees,” Kyle said, “over Willy.” Mitch swallowed, harsh, feeling goosebumps break out over his entire body as he walked over to where Willy was lying, staring up at him. He planted one, then the other knee on either side of Willy’s hips, leaned forward until he could set his hands just above Willy’s shoulders, on either side of his head. The soft give of the cushion against his sore knees was a balm, drawing a sigh from him that made the corner of Willy’s mouth twitch upwards. 

“Is this ok?” Mitch asked, a soft whisper. He could hear Kyle moving around behind them, doing who-knew-what. He didn’t know what Kyle was thinking but he had some guesses, all of which sent shivers down his spine, making his skin prick with heat. 

“Very ok,” Willy whispered back, raising one arm to stroke up and down Mitch’s forearm. Mitch couldn’t help but smile, ducking his head down to kiss Willy, a motion that the other men matched easily, eagerly. Willy’s tongue in his mouth was enough to distract Mitch, however temporarily, from the fact that Kyle was in the room with them. He was abruptly reminded, however, when he felt one of Kyle’s hands take ahold of one of his ass cheeks, his thumb digging in and spreading Mitch apart. Something cold and wet dripped onto his skin, sliding down over his hole, and Mitch stopped kissing Willy as a gasp forced itself from his mouth. 

“Fuck,” he said, and Willy smiled at Mitch’s surprise. He turned his head, looking over his shoulder to see Kyle staring down at Mitch’s ass, a bottle of lube in his free hand. Mitch wondered if he’d had that on him the whole time, if he’d come _looking_ for them, and it’s that thought just as much as Kyle’s eyes on him that makes him shiver. Kyle had unbuttoned his shirt and undone his belt but his pants were still on, still fastened shut. As Mitch watched, he squeezed more lube from the bottle before flicking the cap shut and throwing it onto the cushion next to Mitch and Willy. With his now free hand, Kyle ran his fingers up Mitch’s taint, making him gasp as he gathered up the lube that had slid down his skin. It made a wet sound as he rubbed it around Mitch’s hole, before pushing his thumb in, all at once, making Mitch’s eyes slam shut as he took in a deep, stuttering breath. Kyle worked his finger in and out, the sudden stretch sending heat racing through Mitch’s entire body. It was just as unforgiving as Kyle ever was, the familiar roughness making him relax into the unfamiliar situation, making him rock backwards, encouraging, until Kyle finally pulled out his thumb, replacing it with two fingers. The stretch was unexpected, welcome, and Mitch tried to breath through it, though it was increasingly difficult to pull a full breath into his lungs as arousal began to overtake his entire body. He was finally drawn out of his own head, out of the feedback loop of Kyle working him open by the sensation of fingers ghosting across his forehead, and opened his eyes to Willy brushing his hair off his face. They stared at each other for a long moment, Willy’s expression somewhere between fond and something that Mitch couldn’t read, before Willy finally pulled Mitch down into a kiss, licking into his mouth. Mitch let himself get lost in the sensation of Willy’s lips against his, one of his hands tangling itself in Mitch’s hair as the other wrapped around his shoulders, drawing him down, closer to Willy while also forcing his back to arch more, raising his ass towards Kyle. Mitch could only imagine what he looked like, strung out between the two men, him and Willy bare and exposed, just waiting to see what Kyle would do next. When Kyle finally withdrew his fingers, Mitch couldn’t help but whimper, then shiver at the sound of a zipper being undone, the rustle of fabric, before he finally felt the blunt press of the head of Kyle’s cock against his hole. Mitch wasn’t kissing Willy anymore, just hanging above him, their lips barely brushing as Kyle began to push in and Mitch panted into Willy’s mouth. He could feel himself shaking, his entire body trembling as it opened up for Kyle’s cock, welcoming him deeper and deeper inside of him, the familiar stretch setting his whole body alight. It was so much, too much, but he couldn’t get enough of it at the same time. When Kyle finally bottomed out, the sensation of his trousers pressing against the bare skin of Mitch’s thighs rough and grounding, Mitch couldn’t help but roll his hips backwards, already impatient for more. He heard Kyle huff out a noise that might have been a laugh as he grabbed ahold of Mitch’s hips and began to slide out just as slowly as he’d slid inside of Mitch. When he was dangerously close to sliding out of Mitch completely, he stopped, began to press back in, still so fucking slow, way too slow, and it drew an impatient noise from his throat. He opened his eyes to see Willy still staring up at him, a fond smile curling the corners of his lips, something like surprise in his eyes and Mitch realized that Willy had never seen him like this, had never seen Mitch take it, had never seen how desperate Mitch could be for his husband’s cock. 

“Willy,” Mitch said, and then Kyle snapped his hips forward, an abrupt shattering of the painfully slow pace he had sent that drew a strangled noise from Mitch’s throat and sent his head rocking forward to rest his forehead against Willy’s shoulder. Willy kept ahold of Mitch as Kyle began to fuck him, hard and fast, making Mitch’s entire body rock back and forth with the force of his movements. Mitch couldn’t get a full breath in his lungs, couldn’t think around the feeling of Kyle’s cock splitting him open over and over again. It felt so fucking good, Kyle’s cock and Willy’s hand in his hair and both of them, surrounding him and wrapping him up in the hot press of their skin and the slick side of their sweat. Mitch was distantly aware of the fact that the sound of rain against the wall of windows had gotten louder, the storm strengthening, growing as it sent water pounding against the glass, but it was a distant second to the sounds of the three of them coming together over and over again, the sounds of Kyle forcing him open and filling him up completely. 

“God, god, god,” he chanted as Kyle fucked him over and over again, slamming impossibly deep inside of him with every thrust. 

“Yeah,” Kyle said from behind him. “Just like that, slut. Taking it so well.” Willy made a choked noise and Mitch forced his head up to see that Willy was looking over Mitch’s shoulder, staring down the length of Mitch’s back to where his husband was fucking in and out of Mitch, his eyes wide. “Made to take my cock, aren’t you slut?” Kyle said from behind him, and Mitch let his eyes slide shut again as he gasped out his agreement. “What was that?” Kyle asked. 

“Yes,” Mitch said, forcing himself to open his eyes, to look back over his shoulder as he gasped out the next words, “yes sir.” He felt Willy twitch beneath him at his words even as he watched a satisfied smile curl the corners of Kyle’s lips. Mitch wondered again if Kyle ever had Willy call him sir, wondered what it would be like to hear that, to see that. To see Willy in Mitch’s place, to see Kyle fucking into him, splitting him open instead. A flash of light lit up the room, gone as quickly as it came, and for a second the sounds of them fucking was lost beneath the distant rumbling of thunder. 

“Touch him,” Kyle said, and it wasn’t until Mitch felt Willy’s hand wrap around his cock that he realized who Kyle had been talking to. It was too much, the sensation of Willy’s hand stroking up and down Mitch’s cock, too dry and fast and yet absolutely perfect. The feeling of Kyle still slamming into him over and over again, the wet sound of his cock forcing Mitch open again and again, the rough scrape of his pants against Mitch’s skin. He couldn’t speak any more, could only make desperate little gasping noises as he was rocked back and forth between the two men, as they worked in sync to take him apart completely. He could feel himself unravelling, closer and closer. Willy’s breath next to his ear was almost as harsh as Mitch’s own as he worked Mitch’s cock, as his husband filled Mitch over and over again. Mitch’s hands scrambled for something to hold onto, finding nothing but the smooth surfaces of the cushion as his entire body shook and he finally came with a long, low groan, his cum shooting over Willy’s stomach beneath him. Willy didn’t bother to work him through the aftershocks, let go off him as soon as his cock had stopped spurting and Mitch opened his eyes, looking down the length of the space between them to see that he had taken ahold of his own cock, that he was hard again – from watching his husband fuck Mitch, from making Mitch cum – and was now jerking himself off, quick and rough, Mitch’s cum slicking the way. Mitch just hung there, watching through half-open eyes as the red head of Willy’s cock appeared and then disappeared within his fist, as Kyle’s thrusts grew faster and rougher, losing their rhythm as he approached his own orgasm. Another flash of light lit up the room, the following crash much louder, closer. Mitch kept his eyes on Willy jerking himself off, his own body beginning to twitch, too sensative and overstimulated even though he never wanted Kyle to stop fucking him the way he was then, so deep, so perfect. Another flash, the brightest yet, and the crash was almost directly overhead as Willy gasped into Mitch’s ear. 

“C’mon Willy, wanna see, wanna see you cum again,” Mitch muttered, loving the way that it made Willy gasp and arch up slightly. He was familiar enough with Willy to know that he was close, Kyle too, the stuttering of his hips as he approached his own orgasm familiar and predictable. When he finally came, it was almost simultaneous with Willy, his cum shooting up to mix with Mitch’s on his stomach as Kyle jerked and spilled deep within Mitch, slicking up his insides and making him into even more of a mess than he already was. Mitch let his eyes slip shut as he struggled to catch his breath, but they were forced open when Kyle pulled out of him. Mitch made a face at the sensation, pushing himself back up onto his hands. When he looked down at Willy he was surprised to see the other man’s eyes had welled up with tears. As he watched, one finally escaped, running down the side of his face to disappear into his hair just as Willy’s face lit up with another flash of light. 

“Hey,” Mitch said, satisfaction immediately replaced with worry. “Hey, Willy, you ok?” Willy nodded, laughed, but it sounded wet and strangled and half smothered by the sound of thunder, retreating now.

“I’m fine,” he said, utterly unconvincing. Mitch’s expression must have given his skepticism away because Willy’s smile twisted, becoming something far more real. “I’m fine,” he repeated, and Mitch searched his face for another second before finally accepting the other man’s words at face value, rolling off to the side so that he could collapse on his back next to Willy. 

“God,” he said, staring up at the ceiling. Willy laughed again, this one sounding even more real. Mitch tilted his head forward to see Kyle tucking himself back into his pants, his expression back to something distant and unreadable as he stared down at the two of them. 

“Kyle?” Mitch said, though he wasn’t sure what he was asking. Kyle’s mouth twitched at the corners, an aborted smile that Mitch didn’t know how to read. 

“You should both go clean up,” he said, his eyes sliding over to his husband. “You’re a mess.” Mitch laughed because yeah, obviously, though Willy next to him didn’t say anything, just watched as Kyle took one final look over the two of them before turning and walking away. Mitch rolled his eyes before letting them slide shut, humming contentedly as he listened to the steady sound of the rain and felt his entire body slowly come down. He only opened them when he felt the cushion beneath him move, cracked them just wide enough to see Willy now sitting up, looking down at him with a curious expression. 

“You go ahead,” Mitch said, waving a hand at him and letting his eyes slide shut again. “I think I need a bit longer before I’m going to be able to walk.” Willy laughed, the sound raw and somewhat strangled, but Mitch figured that was to be expected when he’d just cum twice in less than an hour. Actually, he was surprised Willy was able to move already, but move he did, pushing himself up and off the chaise. He listened to the sounds of Willy gathering up his discarded clothes, the soft pad of his feet crossing the room towards the showers. When Mitch cracked his eyes open again he could just barely see him, on the far side of the room, dropping his clothes and stepping under one of the open showers. He couldn’t help but smile then, a sudden happiness and disbelief sparking within him at what had just happened. The sound of Willy’s shower starting mixed with the steady sounds of the rain still hitting the windows, and Mitch took a deep breath and wondered if it’d be too forward of him to ask if they could do that again. 

* * *

Kyle was sitting in the armchair by the window when Mitch poked his head through the door. Mitch actually almost missed him, his eyes having automatically gone to the desk when he stuck his head through the doorway. He’d frowned, certain that he’d seen Kyle moving around the house earlier when he was still working, but mentally shrugged – it wasn’t like he would have known if he’d left while Mitch was busy finishing up the outdoor pool. Mitch probably would have actually just left then, if the rustle of pages hadn’t caught his attention just as he was about to step back out of the room, his head swinging around to see Kyle sitting by the window, his usual serious frown creasing his face as he stared down at the book in his lap. That was a surprise too – he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Kyle looking at anything other than work. Every other time Mitch had sought him out he had found him sitting behind his desk, frowning down at some papers, or frowning at his laptop, or frowning at the wall opposite his desk while speaking on the phone in that same terrifying, flat tone of voice that he’d used when he’d interviewed Mitch for his job. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Kyle do anything that wasn’t work, actually, aside from when he was very literally inside of Mitch. It suited him, Mitch decided as he stood there. Sure, he still had a serious, intense look on his face but Mitch was pretty sure that was just Kyle’s version of resting bitch face. His posture seemed more relaxed though, looser as he flipped the page in his book. Mitch couldn’t get a good enough look at the cover to know what it was but based on the size it was definitely a paperback – fiction, and Mitch felt weirdly delighted at the knowledge that Kyle apparently read for fun. It felt like a prize, to know that about him – something that he probably didn’t tell most people, or let them see, but Mitch knew about him now, had witnessed it. 

“Do you need something?” Kyle asked, and Mitch shouldn’t have jumped – it truly wasn’t a surprise that Kyle had noticed him, the other man was painfully observant and Mitch was about the furthest thing from subtle that you could be – but he couldn’t help but twitch at the sudden breaking of the silence of the room. 

“Oh hey Mitch,” Mitch said as he stepped fully into the room, pushing the door shut behind him. “It’s so nice to see you. How are you?” Kyle finally raised his eyes to look at Mitch at that, his expression blank as he watched Mitch walk across the room towards him, throwing himself down on the couch and wincing at the reminder of how horribly uncomfortable it was. There was no give to it, it was _awful_. “God, you need to get a new couch,” he said, immediately distracted from the bit he’d been doing. 

“No,” Kyle said, “I don’t.” Mitch rolled his eyes at him. 

“Yes, yes, you big important business man, must have important expensive awful furniture.” Kyle’s lips twitched upwards at the corners, though he tried to hide it by sighing, reaching up under his glasses to rub at the inner corners of his eyes. Mitch smiled at the gesture, a feeling of pride and victory shooting through him at having made Kyle, however small and however reluctant, smile. He waited until Kyle moved his hand and was looking at him again before he spoke. “Whatcha reading?” he asked. Kyle’s hand twitched towards the cover, an instinctual move, like he was trying to hide the cover from Mitch, like he was embarrassed to be caught reading or something. 

“Nothing,” he said, predictably. Mitch thought about pushing it but ultimately decided against it, shrugging as he adjusted the way he was sitting, settling in and getting marginally more comfortable, a move that wasn’t unnoticed by Kyle, his eyes carefully tracking Mitch’s movements. 

“I don’t think I’ve read a book since like, high school,” he confessed. One of Kyle’s eyebrows arched upwards.

“Aren’t you doing a masters degree?” Kyle asked. Mitch shrugged. 

“Sure, in microbiology. I don’t know if you know much about microbiology but there’s not much call for reading like, Jane Austen or whatever.” He was gratified to see the way Kyle’s lips once again twitched upwards slightly at the corners.

“Jane Austen?” Kyle said. Mitch shrugged. 

“I don’t know man, Pride and Prejudice is a baller movie. So if I was gonna read something...”

“It’d be Austen.” 

“Yeah I mean, why not?” he said, and the upward tick of Kyle’s mouth grew. He just hummed, set his book on the table to the side of his chair – cover down, Mitch couldn’t help but notice. 

“I would think it would be easier to start with something written in the last decade,” Kyle said, “unless you particularly relate to the plight of young 18th century English women seeking husbands.” 

“I mean, maybe not the husbands part,” Mitch said, “but like, who wouldn’t get excited when a hot rich dude moved into their neighbourhood?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Kyle said, voice dry, and Mitch laughed. 

“I guess not, _Darcy_.” One of Kyle’s eyebrows rose in a careful arch. 

“Darcy?” he said, and Mitch smiled at him. 

“Sure,” he said, standing and walking over until he was standing in front of Kyle, reaching out to pluck at the collar of his shirt. Kyle watched his movements carefully, eyes darkening as he spread his legs so that Mitch could stand in between them, even closer. “Hot, rich, really nice house…” 

“Ah, of course,” Kyle said.

“...incredibly rude and standoffish,” Mitch finished. Kyle gave him a look that was probably meant to be scary. 

“You do remember that I’m your employer, right?” he asked, and Mitch let himself drop to his knees, grateful for the very pretty and probably very expensive rug that covered this portion of the room. He used his hands on Kyle’s thighs to steady his descent and he left them there once he was settled into his position on the floor. 

“Yup,” Mitch said, popping the ‘p’ as he looked up at Kyle through his lashes. Kyle looked equal parts annoyed and turned on, which was pretty par for the course for anyone Mitch slept with, so he took the initiative to slide his hands up Kyle’s thighs, lifting them once he got to where they creased into his thighs, fingers dropping to the buckle of Kyle’s belt. He was helpful enough to lift his hips when Mitch got his fingers under the band of both Kyle’s pants and his underwear, tugging them down just far enough to give Mitch room to work. He didn’t do anything else though, and Mitch saw his fingers flex on the arms of the armchair that now bracketed them both and ok, Mitch could work with that. Licking his lips, Mitch used one hand to take ahold of Kyle’s still soft cock, his other hand keeping him balanced, palm flat and fingers spread on the floor as he leaned forward, running the flat of his tongue over the head of Kyle’s cock. Kyle let out a noise, a small huff of breath, and Mitch took that as encouragement to keep going, moving further down this time before dragging his tongue back up the length of Kyle’s cock. He debated teasing a bit more, but Kyle was always a lot more impatient than Willy, so he just opened his mouth and took Kyle inside. It was kind of gratifying, the feeling of Kyle filing out and hardening inside of his mouth, swelling to fill the space until Mitch had to pull off or risk choking. He set up a steady rhythm, nothing too fancy. He had been feeling restless ever since he’d gotten to the house that afternoon and he didn’t know if this was precisely the cure for the itch under his skin, but if it was he figured there wasn’t much point in making either him or Kyle wait. Kyle didn’t seem to have any objections anyways, if the way that one of his hands finally left the armchair to tangle in Mitch’s hair, not pushing or pulling but just holding on as Mitch bobbed up and down on his cock. The taste and weight of Kyle was familiar against his tongue, and Mitch hummed as he sunk back down. Kyle made a noise at that, small and involuntary so Mitch did it again and again, savouring the new noises that Kyle made each time. He was keyed up himself all of a sudden, on edge and impatient, not to cum himself, though his own cock was steadily hardening inside his shorts, but for Kyle to cum, to taste him, to feel him jerk inside of Mitch’s mouth, to hear the familiar noises he made whenever Mitch brought him to that edge. He wondered, suddenly, again, if he made those same noises with Willy, what Willy looked like on his knees in front of Kyle. 

He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what they’d done together earlier that week for more than an hour at a time, the memory coming back to him intermediately all week, regardless of what else he was doing, sending arousal shooting through him like an electric shock. It had been so hot, being suspended between the two of them, and Mitch couldn’t help but want it again, want more, even. Kyle and Willy hadn’t even touched, hadn’t so much as kissed, and Mitch wanted to know what that would look like, what the two of them looked like together. How Kyle fucked Willy, if it would be different from how he fucked Mitch, how it would be different. What Willy looked like being fucked by his husband instead of Mitch. He sped up as he thought about it, Kyle’s cock sliding in and out of his mouth faster and faster. It was wet and sloppy and loud and so fucking hot that Mitch didn’t even care when Kyle kind of yanked on his hair. Technically Mitch figured it was a warning, but he wasn’t sure that you could really call it that when Kyle immediately used his grip on Mitch’s hair to begin to control his head, holding him there as Kyle’s cock jerked in his mouth and his cum hit the back of Mitch’s tongue, sliding down his throat as he swallowed, barely able to hear the sounds Kyle was making over the pounding of his own blood in his ears. When Kyle finally let him go Mitch only pulled back far enough to rest his forehead on Kyle’s thigh before shoving his hand down his shorts and taking ahold of his own cock. It took an embarrassingly short time before he was twitching and moaning, painfully close to his own orgasm. Kyle’s fingers against his forehead were a shock, making him look up to find the other man staring down at him, eyes dark and intense. Mitch came like that, staring up at Kyle for as long as he could manage before he finally had to give in to the urge to let his eyes slide shut as he moaned and came inside his shorts. He sat there, panting, barely aware of Kyle doing something above him until suddenly there was something behind shoved in his face. He pulled back to see that Kyle was holding out a handful of kleenex, which Mitch took gratefully in his free hand, pulling down his shorts just enough that he could clean himself up before letting them slide back into place. He stood up, making a face as his knees cracked before walking over to throw the tissue in the bin under Kyle’s desk, grabbing a bottle of water from the mini-fridge in one of the cabinets while he was there. 

“Please,” Kyle said as Mitch walked back towards him. “Help yourself.” Mitch snorted, threw himself back onto the couch. Kyle had pulled his pants back up while he was gone, and was back to looking as composed as he ever did, despite the slight redness still staining his cheeks. Mitch kind of hated it, as much as he loved it. He didn’t understand how Kyle could be so _on_ all the time, though it kind of made the moments when Mitch could make him lose his cool all the better for it. 

“I’m washing your cum out of my mouth,” Mitch pointed out after taking another long drink from the bottle. “So like, you’re welcome.” 

“Thanks Mitch,” Kyle said, voice acidic. Mitch smiled at him, screwing the cap back on the bottle before stretching and humming. His eyes caught on the portrait hanging above Kyle’s desk, the one of him and Willy. He’d never met anyone who had an actual portrait painted of them before. It seemed like the kind of thing only politicians or like, oil barons would do. He had to admit that the painter had done a really good job of capturing them though, or at least Willy, his smile in the portrait an exact mirror of the smile he had seen take over Willy’s face so many times since he’d met him. He figured it must have been done right after they’d gotten married, based on how young Willy looked. Kyle looked different too, though in a different way. He looked softer, warmer, and Mitch couldn’t say if it was because the painter hadn’t done a good job with Kyle, or if it was just that Kyle had changed since that portrait was done, gotten harder, colder. The thought made Mitch uncomfortable, like it was something he shouldn’t know, or shouldn’t be thinking about, so he quickly turned his eyes back to Kyle. It did remind him though of something he’d been wondering about ever since he’d shown up at the house and found it more empty than usual. 

“So where _is_ Willy?” he asked, and Kyle frowned. 

“He’s not here?” he asked, and Mitch felt his eyes widen in surprise. 

“Um… you don’t know?” Kyle shrugged, straightening out the creases in his pants, looking oddly uncomfortable. 

“I’m not his keeper.” Mitch laughed. 

“I mean, obviously. I just figured, I don’t know, that he’d have told you where he was going.” Kyle snorted. 

“That would require him to speak to me,” he said, and then immediately looked pained, like he hadn’t meant to say that. Mitch’s own spine stiffened at the words, at the implication within them. 

“Are you guys fighting?” he said, and then shook his head before Kyle could say anything, though the look he gave Mitch was cutting in its own right. “Sorry, no, forget I asked, that’s none of my business.” They sat in silence for a minute, heavy and awkward. Mitch thought about getting up and leaving, but there was a thought growing at the back of his head, painful and insistent, and he wasn’t sure he could leave without knowing– 

“Is it because of me?” he asked, voice small, and when Kyle just gave him a blank look he continued. “Like, because we all slept together? Did that… I dunno, was that ok? We didn’t talk about it ahead of time and like, obviously you guys were ok with both of you sleeping with me separately… but…” Mitch trailed off, caught off guard by the expression on Kyle’s face, unusually open and strangely guilty. 

“It was fine,” Kyle said, voice stiff. “Nothing in my marriage has anything to do with you.” Mitch couldn’t help but flinch at that, though he didn’t really know why – Kyle wasn’t _wrong,_ what Mitch had going on with the two of them had very little to do with Kyle and Willy’s actual relationship, but still. Kyle’s words stung him, and the next words out of Mitch’s mouth could be entirely blamed on that little sting. 

“Sure, except for the fact that you guys decided to have sex with me,” he said. Kyle snorted, and Mitch sat up straighter in surprise. 

“We decided to have sex with you. Right. Look, Mitch, I think you should leave, I have a lot of work to do.” But there was a feeling growing in Mitch’s stomach, dark and uncomfortable and he couldn’t leave like this, not when he still wasn’t completely sure what was–

“Kyle. I know that we’re just fuck buddies or whatever and that’s chill, but like, you guys know I care about you right? Like, as people, and I don’t want to cause any sort of issues–” Kyle laughed, harsh and biting, and Mitch stopped talking, froze with his eyes wide. 

“Oh trust me Mitch,” Kyle said. “Our issues have absolutely nothing to do with you. You’re just the latest in a long, long string of irrelevant men that William has decided to fuck behind my back–” Mitch’s mouth fell open, a feeling like he’d just been punched in the chest shooting through him at Kyle’s words, but Kyle still wasn’t done. “That he decided to act like a whore, again, and was careless enough to get caught,” Kyle made a vague gesture that Mitch couldn’t even begin to interpret. “Like I said, nothing to do with you.” Mitch was frozen, couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. His thoughts were stumbling over each other, the shock of the tone with which Kyle had just spoken, the venom with which he’d just spoken about his husband sending them scattering, disoriented and untethered from what he’d thought he’d known about Kyle and Willy, what he was doing with the two of them. 

“You didn’t know?” Mitch asked, voice small. “But then…” he trailed off again, mind flashing back to the first time he’d slept with Kyle, the way he’d acted and some of the things he’d said. “You fucked me to get back at him,” he said, feeling hollow with the realization. Kyle just looked at him, expression blank. Mitch kept waiting for him to, kept wanting him to interrupt, to disagree, to argue with Mitch’s accusation, but he didn’t. He didn’t, and Mitch’s mind kept spinning, kept flipping through everything he thought he knew, everything they’d done, turning it to match this new reality. “Willy… he was cheating on you, with me. You didn’t know, you didn’t agree to it and then… then what, you found out and decided to, to do the same? You _used me,”_ Mitch said, voice cracking slightly, and Kyle finally reacted, a small flinch. 

“Mitch–” he started, and then stopped, as if realizing that there wasn’t really anything he could say to justify his actions. He sighed, then started again. “If it makes you feel better, it didn’t have anything to do with you.”

“Didn’t have–” Mitch started, voice rising and oh, he was _angry._ “Didn’t have anything to do with me? Are you fucking kidding me? You’re both fucking me! That has everything to do with me!”

“Don’t be childish,” Kyle snapped back at him. “You can’t have seriously thought that what, we had come to some sort of arrangement? That we would, what, invite the _pool boy_ into our marriage?” The derision in his voice made Mitch’s mouth drop open, and he just stared at Kyle for a long moment. 

“You fucked me to get back at your husband and you’re calling me a child?” he finally said. “You used me as some sort of… some sort of _pawn_ in your marital issues, in whatever the fuck is going on in your marriage, and I’m the one who’s at fault for thinking that you two were actual fucking adults who had talked about it, who had agreed to it?” Something like guilt slid over Kyle’s face then, but Mitch wasn’t interested in it. “Holy fucking shit, all this time and you just let me think… wow, fuck you. And fuck Willy too.”

“Mitch–”

“No,” Mitch said, standing, “I don’t… I don’t care. Whatever it is, I don’t care. Both of you can just go ahead and stay miserable and fucked up and being awful to each other and leave me the fuck out of it. I quit.”

“Mitch,” Kyle said again, standing as well, but Mitch was already halfway across the room and he didn’t– he _refused_ to turn around, to give a second more to Kyle and his bullshit. Willy and his bullshit too and god, _god_ he couldn’t believe he’d done this, couldn’t believe that he– that _they_ would do this to Mitch. He could hear Kyle yelling after him again as he flew out the front door but he ignored it, just got in his car and started it with shaking hands. 

He managed to get halfway home before he had to pull off to the side of the road. He sat there for a long minute, white knuckled grip on the steering while before the enormity of what had just happened finally washed over him and he began to cry. 

_Fuck_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for consent issues: mitch thinks that willy and kyle are in an open relationship, they do not tell him and he does not realize that they are cheating on each other with him


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay but, y'know. *gestures around at the world*

It was a bad idea. 

Willy knew it was a bad idea, had been repeating that to himself over and over again the entire drive there. He’d opened his mouth to ask the driver to turn back multiple times, but each time had shut it again without making a sound. Each turn of the wheel, each block taking him further and further away from home was another opportunity for him to stop, to turn back, to not go through with it, and each turn, each block, was also another time he chose not to, chose to keep going. His thoughts were twisting in time with the curve of the road, a meandering loop going nowhere and yet leading him to the same conclusion every time. He knew he was being selfish, greedy. He should just go home, go back to Kyle and the hollow halls of their home, still echoing with the harsh vowels and rotted accusations of their last fight. Should leave this alone, let this die too. Why should this be different, after all, than any of the other things that he’d let wither away over the years, the parts of his heart he’d let dry up, the chunks he’d carved from himself to fit the increasingly narrow box that he was being placed in. Worse still, this involved someone else’s heart, involved the pain of someone other than Willy and just because he was used to the taste of blood, to feeling his skin grow numb and cold didn’t mean he should subject someone else to it. But as much as he _knew_ it was a bad idea, he still _wanted_, wanted badly enough to leave the house while Kyle was still pacing the rug of their bedroom, chain smoking and furious. Wanted it badly enough to drive nearly an hour away, staring out the window as his fingers tapped a nervous rhythm on his thighs. 

It was that thought that kept repeating itself in his head as he left the driver parked illegally on the side of the street, next to a fire hydrant, too impatient to wait for him to find a better spot. It wasn’t like he couldn’t afford the ticket anyway, if he even got one. The apartment itself, hunched on the edge of the sidewalk behind the hydrant, was a gray slab, dreary even against the overcast sky. Though it was the height of summer there wasn’t any green to be seen, just a few dusty dandelions determinedly pushing their way through the cracked concrete of the sidewalk while the two decorative trees bracketing the door were bare of leaves and almost as grey as the building behind them. There was the distant sound of children laughing, someone else shouting, and Willy could see someone sitting on one of the lower balconies smoking, but other than that there were few people around. He supposed it was in the middle of a weekday, but there was still something disconcerting about it, the lack of people occupying the sidewalk, the distant roar of the highway and clammer of nearby construction muffled under the humidity that lay heavy in the air. He swallowed, made his way up to the front doors. They were locked, not a surprise, but when he looked over at the buzzers he saw with a fatalistic sense of resignation that most of them didn’t have names attached to them, and those that did were so faded and peeled so as to be all but illegible. He was standing there, contemplating just turning around and going home, facing the humiliation of returning to Kyle empty handed, when the door abruptly swung open, almost knocking him off the step. 

“Woah,” said the man who had just come flying out the door. His brown hair swung into his eyes as he looked over at Willy, and he raised a hand to push it back out of his face. The two dogs at the end of the leashes he was holding tugged at him, impatient, almost pulling him over. Willy smiled as he looked down at the two dogs, both of them wagging their tails so enthusiastically that their entire bodies were swaying with the motion. 

“Hey there,” Willy said, glancing at the man, who nodded at him, before bending over and rubbing at both of their heads. The dogs somehow managed to wag harder, the dark brown one trying to jump up to lick at Willy’s face. 

“Zeus! No!” the man said, tugging at his leash, though he relaxed slightly when Willy just laughed it off, straightening to look at him. “Sorry,” the man said, his expression apologetic. “He just really, really likes people.”

“No worries,” Willy said, smiling as he looked back down at the dogs. “I like him. They’re both gorgeous actually.” 

“Thank you!” the man said. “Only the one is mine though,” he said, pointing at the lighter of the two dogs. “The badly behaved one belongs to my roommate.”

“Ah, of course,” Willy said, laughing, before making an impulsive decision. “Hey sorry if this is like, out of line, you don’t have to answer and you honestly probably won’t know anyways but… do you know someone who lives here, his name is Mitch? Marner?” The man’s face shifted into surprise, and then wariness. 

“Uh, can I ask who’s asking?” he said. 

“Oh, um, I’m Willy. William. Dubas. His… boss,” Willy stumbled over the last word before trailing off awkwardly, but it didn’t seem to have made a difference because the other man’s eyes were widening anyways, his mouth stretching into a smile. 

“Oh yeah! Willy! Mitch mentioned you.” The other man stuck his hand out. “I”m Travis, his roommate.”

“Nice to meet you,” Willy said, taking his hand and shaking it out of habit, slightly shocky with his luck in running into Mitch’s actual roommate coming out of his building. 

“I have to take the dogs out but you can just go up if you want. It’s 508. Here,” he said, leaning around Willy to tap his fob against the black security box, waiting until the light turned green before pulling away. Willy grabbed for the door handle, pulling it open slightly so that it wouldn’t lock again. 

“Thanks,” he said, somewhat awkwardly. 

“No worries,” Travis said, voice light and cheerful. “Um, he might not be awake yet? I haven’t actually seen him today. But he’ll probably wake up if you ring the buzzer.” Willy nodded, deciding not to comment on the fact that it was almost three in the afternoon. Travis waved at him as he stepped off the stoop and headed away, up the cracked sidewalk. 

“Nice to meet you,” Willy said, far too late, but Travis still shouted back an echoing statement so he figured that he was still fine as far as first impressions went. Assuming, of course, Mitch hadn’t told his roommate everything. Though that probably wasn’t the case, otherwise Willy would have probably faced a very different reaction from one of Mitch’s friends. The thought crossed his mind, not for the first time, of what would happen if Mitch told Auston everything, and he had to swallow down on the bile that rose in his throat. _That wasn’t going to happen,_ he told himself firmly as he swung the door open and stepped inside. _I'm going to fix this._

The inside of the building was barely any cooler than the outside, though the pained whine of AC echoing through the lobby suggested that it was probably meant to be. The floor was covered in a terrible, murky brown carpet, and Willy shuddered to think about how long it had probably been since it had seen a vacuum. Directly across from the entryway were two elevators, both with paper stuck to them, which almost certainly didn’t bode well. Willy crossed the room, a sense of resignation beginning to fill him even before he got close enough to read the two matching out of order signs. The fact that they were in comic sans was just salt in the wound as far as Willy was concerned, and he swung his head around, searching for the stairwell instead. The door was luckily very obvious, just to the right of him, and as he walked over he spared a second to be happy at least that Mitch didn’t live at the top of the building, though he was still probably doomed to arrive at his doorway sweaty and dishevelled. 

The stairwell was, if anything, hotter than either the lobby or outside had been, and as predicted Willy could feel his hair sticking to his forehead as he finally exited it, stepping out onto the fifth floor. He wasn't surprised to see that the building truly didn’t get any nicer from it’s first impression – the hallway was covered in the same carpeting from the lobby, and the walls were painted a horrific sort of green taupe. Half the doors didn’t have numbers on them, though that was less of an issue and more of a natural continuation of the building’s upkeep as a whole. Logic, and the single remaining ‘8’ on the door led him to Mitch’s apartment easily enough, and Willy immediately raised a hand to press the doorbell before he had a chance to second guess himself any further. He could hear the echo of the bell ringing through the door in front of him. There was a long minute of total silence after it faded away where the only sound Willy could hear was that of his own breathing. He wondered if he should buzz again, if he should maybe take this as _the_ sign that he should just turn around and go home and be done with this, be done with Mitch and the entire horrible mess that everything had become. He would, he decided. He should never have come here in the first place anyways, was just so fucking _greedy_ that he couldn’t resist, too used to getting everything that he wanted that he couldn’t even–

“Willy?” Mitch’s voice cut through Willy’s thoughts, froze him in his spot, halfway down the hallway. He hadn’t even heard the door open but sure enough, when he turned around, there he was, leaning out of the doorway, his brow furrowed with confusion. “What are you doing here?” he continued, and if it sounded a bit angry Willy decided to ignore it in favour of focusing on what he’d come there for in the first place, his previous decision to let it go immediately discarded as soon as he’d heard Mitch’s voice, seen Mitch’s face. He walked back to Mitch’s door, stopped in front of the other man. Mitch had never had much of a poker face and right then was no exception; anger, sadness, confusion, all right there on the surface where anyone could see them, where anyone could take advantage of them. Willy was struck with a sudden urge to hide Mitch away, to cover him and make sure that no one could exploit that openness, that no one would ever hurt him because of it. Though, he thought with a pang of guilt that ran through him like a physical wound, he supposed that was what he had already done. Was here to do it again, maybe, and he swallowed against that thought. 

“Hey Mitchy,” he said. “Can I come in?” Mitch frowned. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said, stepping so that his body more firmly filled the doorway, blocking Willy from the inside of his apartment as if Willy had been about to take a run at him, to try and break through him to get to the hallway behind him. 

“Please,” Willy said, “I just want to talk.”

“Kyle told you what happened?” Mitch asked, and when Willy nodded he blew out a hard sigh, glancing up at the ceiling before once again meeting Willy’s eyes. 

“Fine,” he said, stepping back and opening the door wider. “But if I say you have to leave, you have to leave.”

“Yeah, of course, no problem,” Willy said, relieved to even be being let inside, carefully keeping space between them as he stepped past Mitch. He toed off his shoes, grateful that he’d chosen to wear loafers over anything with laces, and then waited for Mitch to lead him further inside. Mitch sighed again, and then gestured for Willy to follow him, leading him a few steps down the narrow hallway, past the doorways to both a bathroom and a kitchen until the space opened up into a sparsely furnished living room. Willy glanced around, suddenly thrown back into the memory of being 18 and living on his own for the first time. Nothing in the room quite matched, and was all obviously second hand, but it was still surprisingly neat, for two men in their early twenties who lived alone. Aside from a scrunched up blanket on the floor which probably belonged to one of the dogs anyways, there was nothing on the floor, though there was a rather impressive collection of empty liquor bottles decorating the shelving unit that was acting as a stand for the TV. Mitch noticed where Willy’s gaze had fallen and his cheeks pinked up slightly even as he again gestured Willy towards the couch. Willy sat down, barely managing to stop himself from making a face when white dog hair immediately began adhering itself to his black trousers. 

“You said you wanted to talk,” Mitch said, bringing Willy’s attention back to the far more pressing issue at hand. When Willy looked over at him he wasn’t surprised to see Mitch sitting as far away from him as possible, his arms crossed, every part of his body language screaming _leave me alone._

“Yeah,” Willy said, swallowing and trying to dredge up the words he’d practiced to himself in the car on the way over, but he was having trouble thinking of them now, here, faced with the enormity of Mitch’s hurt, the swell of guilt inside his own chest suddenly unavoidable and painfully sharp. “I wanted to apologize,” he finally said, figuring he might as well start simple, if he had to start somewhere. 

“Apologize,” Mitch said, voice flat. 

“Yes,” Willy said, turning his body more fully towards Mitch, his palms open on his lap as if to show Mitch that he wasn’t hiding anything, that he was telling the truth. “How Kyle and I treated you, what we did… it wasn’t right.”

“Wasn’t right,” Mitch repeated, and _fuck,_ Willy was already fucking this up. 

“It was wrong,” he admitted. “It was awful and cruel and selfish. We weren’t– I wasn’t thinking about how it could hurt you too.” 

“You think,” Mitch said, and Willy had to fight to stop himself from flinching away from the tone of Mitch’s voice, the flat brutality of the anger within each word. Willy shook his head, looked down at his own hands. 

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” he said, “I know you might not believe that, after everything, but I really, really like you. Kyle does too, though he’s bad at showing it. We didn’t want to hurt you.”

“No, of course not,” Mitch said, voice calm but still just as full of anger as before. “You just wanted to use me to hurt each other, right?” Willy couldn’t stop himself from flinching that time, jerking away from Mitch’s words like they were a physical brand writing Willy’s sins in his flesh for all to see. 

“Yes,” he admitted, because this wasn’t going to go anywhere if he wasn’t honest with Mitch, if he didn’t finally tell him the whole truth. “Or, no.”

“Jesus,” Mitch said, and Willy raised his head to meet Mitch’s eyes, rushing to cut off whatever Mitch was going to say next. 

“Not like that,” he said. “We weren’t… I didn’t sleep with you hoping Kyle would find out, or that it would hurt him somehow. I just liked you. I liked spending time with you, I liked talking to you. You made me happy, and when I kissed you and you kissed me back…” he trailed off, shrugging. 

“That’s not better, Willy,” Mitch said. “You still let me think… you never told me Kyle didn’t know.” 

“Because I assumed you knew!” Willy said, unable to stop himself from defending his own actions in this one small way. “I never would have… I never would have thought that you would have thought that he knew!” He paused, watched Mitch mouth Willy’s words back, a frown creasing his face. “I thought you knew that I was cheating on him,” Willy said, hoping that was a bit clearer. “I never would have guessed that you would have come to any other conclusion.” He shrugged. “I guess maybe because us having an– an open marriage, or whatever, would have never occurred to _me,_ I never would have guessed that that was what you thought was happening.”

“Well that just says a lot about what you think of me, doesn’t it then?” Mitch asked. “That you thought I would sleep with you without your husband knowing about it.” Willy shrugged, a stilted, awkward movement. 

“I don’t think it says anything worse than what I think of myself,” he admitted, and Mitch frowned at him. 

“What about Kyle?” Mitch asked, changing tracks, and Willy couldn’t help but make a face. Fuck his husband for making him explain Kyle’s actions, honestly, though Willy knew that if Kyle had gotten his way Willy wouldn’t be here at all, wouldn’t be in the position of having to explain himself to their pool b– to their ex-pool boy. 

“Kyle… Kyle can be a bit… vindictive,” he said, and couldn’t help the half smile that took over his mouth when Mitch snorted in response. “He tends to lash out when he’s hurt, even when it’s me doing the hurting. He doesn’t like to be the… loser, so to speak.” 

“So he fucked me in revenge,” Mitch said, voice back to that same flat anger, “to get back at you.” Willy shrugged. 

“At first,” he said. “He could have stopped once I found out but he didn’t. I think he kept doing it because he liked you.” Mitch raised an eyebrow at that.

“You think?” he said. 

“I know,” Willy amended. “But don’t try and get him to admit that out loud, it’s worse than pulling teeth, getting him to admit to anything that might be viewed as a vulnerability.”

“I’m a vulnerability?” Mitch asked, voice surprised, and Willy shrugged again. 

“Liking anything is a vulnerability,” he said. “If you like something, that means that it’ll hurt worse if you lose it.” He looked up from where his gaze had sunk to his hands, where he was twisting his wedding band around and around his finger, meeting Mitch’s eyes again. “It meant that it hurt, losing you.” Mitch scoffed, but Willy could tell that he was beginning to believe what Willy was telling him. It was written in his face, in the way that his shoulders had begun to lose some of their tension, and Willy allowed himself to feel a spark of optimism for the first time since he’d left the house. They sat in silence for a few moments before Mitch finally sighed, reaching up to rub at his face. 

“Okay,” he said. 

“Okay?” Willy asked. 

“I accept your apology,” Mitch said, dropping his hands and meeting Willy’s eyes. Willy couldn’t help but smile at the words, though he knew they were reluctant at best. 

“Really?” he said. “You’ll come back then?” 

“What?” Mitch said, an expression of surprise and confusion washing over his face. “Come back where?”

“To work for us,” Willy said, frowning back at him, because where else would Mitch come back to?

“Why the fuck would I do that?” Mitch asked, and Willy’s mouth dropped open in surprise. 

“Um, because you accepted my apology?” 

“Yeah,” Mitch said, gesturing expansively. “But just because I decided not to hate you doesn’t mean that I want to go back to working for you.” Willy couldn’t help but flinch slightly at the word hate, but barrelled forward anyways. 

“We’ll double your pay,” he said. 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Mitch said. 

“What?” Willy said. “Seriously Mitch, whatever it takes, we just–”

“What it would take is for you to go back in time and have never started fucking me, and fucking with me, in the first place.” 

“Well, I can’t exactly do that!” Willy said, and Mitch opened his arms wide, a _see_ gesture. “There has to be something that I can do,” he said, and Mitch shook his head. 

“I just… I don’t think it’s a good idea Willy. I don’t think I can… I don’t think I know how to be around you and not want you anymore.” 

“What? You don’t have to stop wanting me.” Mitch gaped at him. 

“Uhhhh… I kinda do.” 

“Why?” Willy asked. “It’s all, it’s all in the open now. Kyle and I have talked about it.” _Kind of_, Willy thinks but doesn’t say, and ignored the twinge of guilt that he felt about the small lie. 

“Really?” Mitch said, raising a disbelieving brow. 

“Really,” Willy said. “I know we hurt you, badly, and I know that you don’t really have a reason to trust us but… please. Let us make it up to you. Let us give you your job back, let us… try again.”

“Try again,” Mitch repeated, voice soaked with doubt. 

“Yeah,” Willy said again, voice strong like he could just get everything to be ok by sheer force of will. “Try again.” Mitch stared at him, expression slowly cracking open, and Willy knew then that whatever Mitch said next, Willy had already won. 

* * *

Willy had spent the entire week after him and Kyle had slept with Mitch obsessively thinking about it, replying it in his head in bits and pieces over and over again. The broken, bit-off sound Mitch had made when Kyle had pushed into him. Kyle calling Mitch a slut, Mitch calling him ‘sir’ in turn. The sounds of his husband fucking someone else, the sway of Mitch’s body above him, the look on Kyle’s face the whole time, anger and arousal swirling together, a storm threatening to destory them all. 

They hadn’t talked about it, obviously. When Willy had gone upstairs that night Kyle had already been in bed, lights off and facing the far wall. He hadn’t so much as twitched when Willy climbed in behind him, though Willy could tell from his breathing, from the tense set of his shoulders, that he was still awake. He thought about reaching out, about putting a hand on Kyle’s shoulder, the curve of his hip. Of pressing their bodies close together, of cracking this thing open and finally letting it spill between them to see if there was anything left that wasn’t yet twisted beyond repair. He thought about it, swallowed, and gave into his fear, turning his back on Kyle and staring out into the darkness of his own side of the room. It had taken a very long time for him to fall asleep. That night, and the one after as well, his mind too caught up in an endlessly repeating loop of accusations, self-recriminations, anger, doubt, sadness, and beneath it all a happiness that he didn’t know what to do with, didn’t know how to address. It was easier, more familiar, to focus on the rest, to let them wind himself tighter and tighter within his own head until, on the next day Mitch was scheduled to come in, Willy had decided, rather abruptly, that he couldn’t stand to be around him, couldn’t handle seeing him and what that might mean, what that might shake out of his head, what that might shatter within him. Instead, he called Auston, and asked the other man to come pick him up. 

Auston did so, with only a small bit of grumbling, because he was a good friend and a good person, arriving at the house early in the morning, backseat full of children. Willy had paused by the driver’s side door, glancing between Auston’s face through the open window and the children in the back. 

“We’re going to the splash park,” Auston said. “Take it or leave it.” 

“I’ll take it,” Willy said, walking around to the other side of the car. It was for the best, really. Auston had been Mitch’s friend long before either of them had met Willy, and with the kids in tow it meant that Auston couldn’t ask what was so urgent that Willy just had to get out of the house for the whole day on a random Wednesday, or at least would make it a lot easier for Willy to dodge that question, to avoid talking about it and just wrap himself in the distraction of Auston and his brood. 

“Don’t you have a pool?” Willy asked as he buckled himself into the passenger seat. “Like I swear I remember you having a pool.”

“Shut up,” Auston said, putting the car in drive and heading down the driveway. “One, we don’t have all the fun fountain things that they have at the splash park. Two, it’s good for them to socialize with other kids.” Willy twisted around in his seat so that he could look into the backseat. 

“Is that true?” he asked the kids. “You guys need to socialize with other kids?” The baby happily burbled at him from her car seat. Diego didn’t so much as twitch, far too engrossed in the game held in his hands, but Maria met Willy’s eyes, the 5-year-old’s expression deadly serious. 

“Yes,” she said. “It’s very important.” Willy nodded back at her, matching the seriousness of her expression. 

“Ok,” he said, “I guess it’s a good thing your Papa decided to take you guys to the splash park today then eh?” She gave him a withering look, as if to say _don’t patronize me_ before turning to look out the car window. Willy held up his hands in surrender, turning back to smile at Auston, who glanced towards the backseat in the rearview mirror before meeting Willy’s eyes and smiling back at him. 

“Good news, Maria also thinks that it’s important that they socialize with other kids.” 

“So I’ve heard,” Auston said. “At length. All week. Don’t let her act fool you, she is very excited to see her friends today. Aren’t you, mija?” Willy’s eyes went to the rearview mirror just in time to see the glare Maria shot Auston, and he had to bite on his lip to stop himself from laughing. Auston met his eyes, shook his head with a smile. 

The splash park turned out to be the perfect distraction, between the kids running around like crazy, watching the hilarity of Auston trying to interact with the other parents, most of whom were at least ten years older and seemingly very baffled by Auston’s repeated assurance that no, he wasn’t the babysitter or the nanny or the older brother. There were a couple of comments that made Auston’s lips thin, made Willy have to fight the urge to get up and yell at the women he was talking to, but he made himself stay put. It wasn’t his place, and Auston wouldn’t appreciate it. Instead Willy mostly kept to the bench they had laid claim to when they arrived, holding the baby and watching all their stuff whenever Auston had to go run after Diego or Maria. Luckily Freja was a very happy baby, and was fairly content to just chill in Willy’s lap, gnawing on her stuffed rabbit. It was peaceful, beneath the outward veneer of chaos, and he even managed a full ten minutes a couple of times without thinking about Mitch and Kyle and the mess that was his own life. 

The house was silent when Willy got home. 

It wasn’t an unusual silence, the house was empty more often than it wasn’t, and Willy and Kyle on their own were hardly enough to make it feel occupied, much less lived in, but there was something off about it, something that Willy couldn’t quite put his finger on. Impulsively, he diverted off course, walking down the hallway to Kyle’s study rather than heading straight upstairs. The door was just barely ajar, and Willy pushed it open cautiously, conscious of the fact that Kyle might be on the phone, or even have someone over for a meeting. He needn't have worried however; when he looked in it was to discover that his husband was alone, sitting in his armchair, hunched over with his head in his hands. His hair was a mess like he’d been running his fingers through it over and over again, and Willy felt a sudden clench of fear take ahold of him, sending him through the room before he could think better of it. 

“Kyle?” he said, reaching his hand out but not quite touching Kyle’s shoulder. Kyle flinched at the sound of Willy’s voice, pulling back before finally glancing up at him. There was something frantic about his expression, something that Willy wasn’t sure that he’d ever seen before, and it did nothing to calm his worry, just sent his heart beat flying even faster as his entire body tensed in preparation for whatever had managed to shake Kyle from his normal steady state. “Kyle?” he repeated. “Are you ok? Are… is everyone ok? Is it your grandma?” Kyle looked at him for a second, expression blank, before he shook his head, almost visibly pulling himself together. 

“I’m fine, both of our families are fine,” he said, and Willy almost physically sagged under the wave of relief that washed over him. He let out a long, shaky breath, taking a couple steps back so that Kyle wasn’t being forced to look straight up at him anymore. 

“What is it?” he asked. Kyle shook his head. 

“Nothing, everything’s fine,” he started, then hesitated. Willy sank down onto the couch behind him, bracing himself with a hand against the firm seat. It might not be either of their families but something had clearly shaken his normally unflappable husband, and him dancing around whatever it was was doing little to dispel the dread welling up in Willy’s stomach, filling his throat.

“Kyle,” he said, voice firm, and when Kyle looked up to meet his eyes he saw nothing but flat resignation. Kyle blew out a long, hard breath, rubbing his hand through his hair again before straightening in his seat, meeting Willy’s stare head on. 

“The pool boy quit,” he said. Willy blinked once, twice–

“What?” he asked. 

“The pool boy quit,” Kyle repeated, then hesitated before continuing. “The– Mitch. Mitch quit.” 

“Why?” Willy said, bewildered, and then immediately felt like an idiot. _Why do you think, William?_ a mocking voice asked within his own head. _Do you think it might have something to do with your husband fucking him in front of you? Maybe?_ “What did you say to him?” he said instead, changing tactics. It was a mistake, he knew it the second the words left his mouth, Kyle’s face shuttering into a defensive mask, even though Willy hadn’t meant it like that, hadn’t meant it like an accusation or a laying of blame. 

“What makes you think I said anything?” Kyle asked, and Willy gestured vaguely, feeling the argument approaching like an oncoming storm that he was helpless in the face of, unable to do anything to slow it’s inevitable approach. 

“I don’t know, he clearly talked to you, when he quit or whatever. I haven’t been home, haven’t even talked to him since–” Willy cut himself off, and they both sat in an uncomfortable silence for a minute, the unspoken weight of _we fucked him_ hanging between them, a black hole bending everything in the room towards it. Kyle cleared his throat, reached out to straighten the cuffs of his shirt, a nervous gesture that he rarely indulged. _He’s hiding something_ Willy realized. “What did you say?” he repeated, and Kyle sighed again. He stared at Willy for a long moment, his gaze heavy, considering, before he finally leaned back into his armchair, crossing his legs and making a dismissive gesture with one hand. 

“I told him the truth,” he said, leaning his cheek on his other hand, elbow braced on the armrest, his gaze fixed, unwavering, on Willy. Willy felt his blood turn to ice in his veins. 

“You told him… what does that mean?” he asked.

“What do you think it means William?” Kyle said, voice flat and emotionless and all the more vicious for it. “It means I told him that you only let him fuck you because you’re a whore who doesn’t know how to keep his legs shut around the help. And then I told him that I only fucked him to spite you.” Willy froze, unmoving as his husband’s words slowly sank into him like a red hot knife, burning and cauterizing at once, cutting and numbing. He couldn’t feel his fingertips, couldn’t feel anything but the pounding of his heart, the anxiety and fear spiking through his veins. 

“I…” he started, and then trailed off, absolutely at a loss for what to say, what part of what Kyle had said he should address first. “You… why?” he finally settled on, the only thing he could think to ask. 

“It doesn’t matter why,” Kyle said, something like guilt sliding over his face betraying the conviction with which he spoke, the dismissiveness in his tone. “It was the truth either way.”

“It wasn’t a fucking truth he needed to know Kyle!” Willy said, a wave of anger rushing through him. “What the fuck.”

“If you hadn’t–”

“Oh yeah sure no wait, let me guess. This is all my fault.” 

“You fucked him first!” 

“You fucked him second! Jesus Christ Kyle, what’s the difference?”

“The difference is that I wasn’t the one who broke our wedding vows, William. I wasn’t the one who started fucking around, sleeping with the fucking driver and who kno–”

“And you fucked my best friend!” Willy interrupted, savouring the way that Kyle’s eyes widened in shock. “Did you think I was so stupid I wouldn’t notice? That you were too good to get caught? Too smart? Not like your stupid whore husband, fucking the help in the house where anyone could catch them. Well guess what Kyle,” Willy said, gesturing wide with his hands, distantly aware of the fact that he was now shouting. “I didn’t fuck anyone else. Whoever it is that you’ve decided in your head that I’ve fucked? I haven’t. I fucked Patty, because I was sad, and alone, and he was being nice to me. And I fucked Mitch because I wanted to. But I haven’t fucked anyone else. Ever.” Kyle blinked back at him, mouth open slightly as he stared at his husband in shock, and Willy felt a brief second of satisfaction of having shocked his husband into silence before everything that he just said washed back over him in a wave, and all he could feel was nausea. He didn’t have to sit with that feeling for long though, before Kyle’s face was hardening and he sat forward in his seat. 

“You still cheated first–”

“Fuck you,” Willy said. 

“You still cheated first,” Kyle repeated, louder. “You… you just keep doing it. Over and over again. We were… I never would have thought to cheat on you, never wanted to sleep with anyone else and then you just… you fucked our driver. Our driver, William. Do you know how fucking humiliating that was?”

“Humiliating? You want to talk about humiliating? You fucked my best friend and thought I wouldn’t find out. Both of you spent a year smiling in my face while you fucked around behind my back. That’s humiliating.” Willy felt a small spike of something similar to satisfaction, but far more vicious and cruel, shoot through him at the guilty look that washed over Kyle’s face. 

“Why Mitch then?” Kyle said, changing tactics. “Why fuck him? Revenge for Kappy? Are we just going around and around in some sort of ouroboros of punishment?” 

“No,” Willy said, “I’m not a vindictive little bitch, Kyle. I wouldn’t fuck someone just to get back at you.” 

“Then why–”

“Because I’m sad, Kyle,” Willy interrupted, voice loud enough to cut Kyle off, to leave both of them sitting in shocked silence afterwards, the words ringing through the empty air. He slumped over, putting his head in his hands, suddenly just utterly, completely, exhausted with everything. “I’m so fucking sad, and alone,” he mumbled towards the rug. “You’re never here, you’re always working, or talking about work, or thinking about work.” To his horror, Willy felt tears begin to build up in the corners of his eyes, and even as he tried to blink them back, he knew that Kyle would be able to hear them in his voice, in the choked way his breath was now struggling from his lungs. “You left me without leaving me, to fade away in this fucking mausoleum, completely alone.” 

“William…” Kyle started, voice far softer, but he just trailed off, clearly at a loss for what to say. Which made two of them, Willy supposed. 

“I hate how much I still love you,” Willy said, his voice cracking in the middle. He kept his eyes fixed on the floor, still desperately fighting the urge to break down completely. “How do I still love you?” 

“William,” Kyle said again, but Willy ignored him. 

“I always… I always knew what being married to you would mean. And I loved it, at first, the parties and the act and the games. Because it was with you. But then you just… started to disappear. And I can’t… I couldn’t do it alone. Alone, it’s just me in these rooms full of rabid wolves who want nothing more than to see me bleed because I’m… I’m gay, and young, and they’re jealous, of me, or you, or both of us, and that was fine when you were with me but you left me Kyle.” Willy looked up then, unable to keep talking without looking at his husband, giving in to the way tears began streaking down his cheeks as he raised his head. “Why did you leave me?” he asked, and watched as Kyle’s face crumpled. He stood up, crossed the room in two quick steps before collapsing to his knees in front of Willy, taking ahold of both of his wrists and staring up into his face. 

“I didn’t,” he said, and Willy choked out a laugh that was more like a sob. “I didn’t,” he repeated. “William I’ve never… I never went anywhere.” Willy shook his head, blinking rapidly as the tears kept sliding down his cheeks, like now that he’d started they would never stop. “William,” Kyle said again, voice helpless. “William.” Willy let out a sob, shaking as he finally gave in to the overwhelming need to cry, to let the final few stitches holding him together slip free, leaving him to fall apart completely. “William,” Kyle repeated, reaching his hand up to brush Willy’s hair from his face, wiping ineffectively at his tear-streaked cheek before rising up to wrap his arms around Willy’s shoulders. Willy went when he pulled, collapsing down onto the floor, Kyle’s arms around him, his face pressed to Kyle’s chest. His arms went around Kyle more on instinct than anything else but once they were there he found he couldn’t convince them to move, to let go. Instead he just clung to his husband as sobs wracked his body again and again. “I would never go anywhere,” Kyle said. “I love you, William. I love you.” 

Willy just tightened his grip, and cried and cried until he couldn’t breath, until there was nothing left inside of him but a great, echoing chasm. 

* * *

Kyle was out the first day Mitch returned to work, which was probably for the best, all things considered. Mitch might have said that he’d accepted both of their apologies, but Willy suspected that the other man might have had a different reaction if it had been Kyle in his apartment attempting to extend an olive branch. Willy, after all, hadn’t been the one to say whatever horrible things had fallen from Kyle’s mouth. Willy knew first-hand how cutting his husband could be when he wanted to be, when he felt threatened or vulnerable, and he could only imagine what it would be like to have that vitriol directed at him without knowing everything else about Kyle, knowing everything about who he was and why he was the way he was. 

Before everything, Mitch had gotten into the habit of just letting himself into the house, which was rarely locked during the day, both Kyle and Willy feeling like the large gate barring the driveway, along with the fence surrounding the property, was more than enough security. His movements through the house were predictable: through the front door, back to the indoor pool, then to the outdoor pool, and at some point in that process Willy would probably waylay him, distracting him with either conversation or, well. 

Other things. 

On the day they’d agreed Mitch would return to working for them though, Willy was startled upright from where he’d been scrolling twitter on his phone on a couch by the long, rolling toll of the front door. He swiftly padded his way down the hallway on bare feet, waving Marie away when she stuck her head out from one of the other doorways, her expression curious. 

“Sorry, sorry,” he said to her. She raised an eyebrow at him but disappeared back into the house so he decided to just ignore that. He’d been struggling to look her in the face ever since she’d caught him and Mitch fucking anyways, dreaded to think of what her opinion of him was, what she’d told her friends and family about her employer. He recognized Mitch’s silhouette even warped by the glass of the front doors, which felt ridiculous but was proven to be accurate when he pulled open the door to reveal Mitch waiting on the stoop, shifting from foot to foot and nervously chewing on his lip. 

“Hi,” Willy said, feeling weirdly breathless at the sight of the other man. He realized suddenly that he truly hadn’t been certain that Mitch would actually come, and was overcome by a wave of relief to see him on his front step.

“Hi,” Mitch said, raising a hand in an awkward half-wave. Silence descended between them, awkward in a way that it hadn’t been since… well, ever. 

“You know you’re still… you’re welcome to just come in, you don’t have to ring the bell,” Willy said. 

“Oh no yeah for sure,” Mitch said. “I just…” he trailed off, and Willy couldn’t stand this, the two of them standing in the doorway like strangers, like they weren’t friends anymore. He wished, suddenly, overwhelmingly, violently, that things could go back to how they were, before Kyle opened his mouth and tore everything astunder. Before he shredded the unspoken treaty of matching betrayal for betrayal. The tear of guilt in his chest that lingered over the look on Mitch’s face when he’d shown up at his apartment, the way he talked about not knowing that Willy was cheating on his husband with him though – that feeling, more than the impossibility of walking back in time to undo what had been done, was what made Willy grit his teeth and bear forward into the present, the reality of the situation laid bare. Still, he wished, he wished, he wished… 

“Come in,” Willy said, instead of saying any of that. 

Mitch stepped into the house, flinching slightly when his shoulder brushed Willy’s, and Willy had to swallow down on the bile that rose in his throat, the building feeling in his gut that there was no coming back from what had transpired between them, that it would always be like this, strained and awkward and then Mitch would quit again, for real this time, rather than spend any more time in this empty mansion, buffeted back and forth between Willy and Kyle. Would quit rather than deal with Willy’s wounds, Kyle’s temper, the hollows of the house forever echoing with shouted accusations and quiet, cruel observations. Would quit, and leave Willy just as alone as he’d always been. Like poor mad Bertha, locked away and forgotten; abandoned to her fate. 

For now though, for now Mitch stepped inside of the house, and Willy breathed deeply and followed him into the shadows. 

* * *

“I want to hire Mitch back,” Willy had said. 

It had been three days since he’d broken down in Kyle’s study, three days since he’d cried for so hard and so long that he’d slept for twelve hours afterwards, exhausted in ways that transcended physical endurance. He’d spent those days wandering around the house, feeling like a ghost, an echo of a person rattling around an endless chamber, trapped and condemned to slowly dissipate into the inevitable nothing. Kyle had actually stayed home, had spent the entire first day hovering worriedly around like he thought Willy was about to break, like what had happened in the study was a preview, a small sliver of insight into something far worse yet to come. By the second day, when Willy had managed a full twenty-four hours without screaming, crying, or breaking something, he began to dip back into his study, taking phone calls and answering emails. By the third day, he spent the entire day shut away in that room, only emerging to grab lunch from the chef and glance in at Willy, lying across one of the couches, staring out at the trees. 

Willy had spent those three days feeling both ridiculous and entirely justified in indulging his own dramatic tendencies. He’d texted David, sometime in the second day. 

_if I ran away to america, would you take me in?_

_ **??? ofc** _

_ **are you running away to america** _

_ **willy** _

_ **william** _

_ **u have to give me at least a week’s notice i don’t have a mattress in the guest room rn** _

Willy had let his fingers hover over the keyboard, let himself think it: _should I get a divorce?_ He’d even started typing it out, one word, then two, before he deleted the entire message, started again.

_nvm_ he said, then threw his phone down in his lap, rubbing his hands over his face and cursing himself inside his own head. He didn’t know what he was _doing,_ felt like he hadn’t known what he was doing in years. With a sudden sharp pain, he let himself think about how badly he wished to talk about this with his mother, with his dad. They would hate Kyle though, irrevocably, and Willy wasn’t yet willing to set that bridge alight. He couldn’t talk to David or Alex about it, for the same reason. Kappy had fucked Kyle and Willy wasn’t sure he even wanted to be friends with him anymore, much less entrust him with the shattered shards of what remained of his marriage. Auston would hate him for what he’d done to Mitch, and even if he’d deserve it, Willy didn’t think he could bear it, the loss of yet another relationship. After Auston… after Auston Willy ran out of people to talk to, and wasn’t that just a depressing commentary on his entire life. 

Willy abruptly stood, walking down the hall to Kyle’s study, pushing open the door and stepping fully inside when Kyle didn’t do anything more than glance up at him from his computer screen. He didn’t fully realize what he was about to say until it was said, until Kyle’s eyes widened in shock. 

“What?” Kyle had said. “Why?” 

“You’re going to go back to work– no, don’t, you’re already doing it,” Willy said, not giving Kyle the chance to deny it when he saw him opening his mouth in preparation of defending himself. “I can’t live like this anymore Kyle. I need… I want…” Kyle’s expression was halfway between resigned and amused when he interjected. 

“I thought I was the one who was supposed to get a mistress,” he said, and then winced. Willy gave him a look but magnanimously decided not to comment on that. 

“I don’t know that it counts as having a mistress if the person is sleeping with both the husband and the… husband,” he said instead. Kyle smiled slightly, a small, twisted thing, before sighing, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands in his lap as he looked at Willy, his gaze assessing. 

“Why?” he asked again, and Willy met his eyes, kept his voice firm. 

“If you leave me here alone again, I will leave you.” 

“You want to keep fucking him?” Kyle asked, voice coldly curious, detached, and Willy made sure to match him, tone for tone. 

“Don’t you?” he said. Kyle didn’t react, just looked at Willy for another long moment before turning back to his computer. 

“Fine,” he said. “But you’re the one getting him back.”

“Of course,” Willy said, turning to leave the room. 

“I love you,” Kyle’s voice from behind him froze Willy midmotion, hand just grazing the knob of the door. 

“I love you too,” he said to the heavy oak frame. There was silence from behind him, and no further protest when he finally pulled the door open. 

* * *

If you’d asked Willy, back before any of this had happened, if Mitch was capable of holding a grudge, or even staying angry, he’d have said no without blinking – that wasn’t who Mitch was, Mitch with his wide smile, his generous heart, his laugh like sunshine. In a way, Willy had been right – Mitch couldn’t hold a grudge like Kyle could, like Willy, on his worst days, was more than capable of doing, keeping it in their hearts like a precious poison, rotting and carefully nurtured. Even then, Willy held grudges like a burden, something that he’d rid himself of if he could, if he hadn’t somehow managed to wind everything so deep inside of himself that he’d lost the ability to let go of anything, too fearful that the act of unburdening would crack him open to his messy core. Kyle, of course, held grudges like an art form, like a prize that he wanted to show off. Willy had watched him hide needles in his words, wait months and years to reveal the knife behind his back, far too many times to have anything but respect and a strange sort of awe for the way that Kyle carried his anger like a tool, like a weapon. It was part nature, part nurture, Kyle having always been destined to walk the narrow path from the cradle to the grave with a straight spine and violence held behind his teeth. Willy knew enough about the cold indifference with which he’d been raised to understand how that had shaped his husband; how when your anger was the only thing you could own for yourself, it became more precious than forgiveness, more valuable than kindness. More welcome than love and wanting. 

As Willy’s back hit the counter, he had to admit that he might have been mistaken about Mitch’s ability to live in his anger, to harbour resentment and bitterness in the gentle cavern of his chest. There was a sharpness to the kisses Mitch was stealing from him that he wasn’t used to, his grip tight on Willy’s hips in a way that might speak to rage just as easily as desperation. 

Willy wasn’t sure he cared either way, was just happy to taste Mitch against his tongue, to hear the noise that he let out when Willy bit at his lip in return. After all, it wasn’t like touch tempered with fury wasn’t something he was accustomed to. 

“Willy,” Mitch breathed against his lips. 

“Yeah,” Willy said, dragging open his eyes to see Mitch staring at him from barely an inch away. Mitch didn’t say anything for a long moment, long enough to send worry sparking through Willy’s stomach. “Mitch?” he asked, and Mitch shook his head. 

“I didn’t think… I want to stay mad at you,” he said, and Willy felt like he’d swallowed lead, his stomach sinking as the dull pain of regret surged up to meet it. 

“Oh,” he said, hating how small his voice was. Mitch raised a hand up to brush the hair from Willy’s forehead, the gesture startlingly gentle. 

“I want to,” he repeated. “I should.” _Should,_ Willy repeated to himself inside his head, _not do,_and he had to stop the smile that wanted to tick up the corners of his lips, biting at the inside of his cheek. 

“But?” he asked. Mitch stared at him for a long moment before surging forward again, kissing Willy with just as much heat, just as much desperation as before, and Willy figured that was answer enough. Even if Mitch never fully forgave him, even if a little part of him hated Willy forever, this was enough for Willy; Mitch’s fingers flexing on his hips, his tongue dipping inside of Willy’s mouth, the harsh exhalation of his breath against Willy’s cheek. It was still more than he’d had, was still something to be savoured and treasured. Besides, sweet things so often taste so much better with just an edge of bitterness at their core. 

“Up,” Mitch said, pushing at Willy’s hips, and Willy put his palms flat on the counter behind him, pushing himself up until he was seated atop the marble countertop. Mitch immediately stepped forward, filling the space between Willy’s legs even as he tilted his head upwards to recapture Willy’s mouth in another kiss. Willy knew he’d missed this, missed Mitch, but he didn’t think he’d let himself fully realize how much. It felt like he couldn’t get enough, like every kiss somehow made his craving worse instead of better, every little bit of Mitch he got just making him want more. He was making desperate little noises, hitching his hip forwards to try and grind against Mitch, wanton and loud and unable to make himself stop. The only thing saving him from complete embarrassment was the fact that Mitch seemed to be feeling it just as much as Willy was, his hands cupping Willy’s head, tilting him so that he could kiss him deeper, kiss him harder, his thumb rubbing over the sharp edge of Willy’s jaw. Willy let his hands slide downwards from where they had been clutching helplessly at Mitch’s shoulders, stopping when they reached his lower back and Willy could use his grip there to pull Mitch in, impossibly tighter, until he could feel the thick press of Mitch’s cock against his own. Both men moaned, almost in unison at the sudden pressure, Mitch’s hips hitching forward in an almost helpless grind. Willy just whined into his mouth, a noise that made Mitch pull back, his face alight with a smile that immediately pulled an answering one to Willy’s face, unable to resist smiling in the face of such obvious happiness. 

“Fuck,” Mitch said, his eyes flicking over Willy’s face. “I missed this. I missed you.” 

“I missed you too,” Willy said, probably too honest, hooking his heels around the back of Mitch’s legs and trying to pull him closer. Mitch laughed at him, pulled away instead, leaving Willy pouting on the countertop. He was saved from any anxiety by the fact that Mitch didn’t even pause before he began taking off his shorts, his gaze, hungry, still fixed on Willy. Willy spent a second savouring the sight of Mitch’s body, lithe but still so strong, all toned muscle and tanned skin, before he scrambled to catch up, hooking his fingers in the waistband of his swim shorts and wiggling his ass until he could pull them off without having to dismount from the countertop. The marble was cool against his heated skin, making him shiver as much as the AC, icy in contrast to how hot it had been outside, to the fire burning in Willy’s stomach. When Mitch stepped forward again, Willy was already reaching out to him, pulling him back again, legs again wrapping around him. Mitch didn’t pull away this time, just smiled his way into a kiss. It didn’t take long for it to turn just as heated as it had been before, both of them barely bothering to break apart to gasp for air, long, harsh mouthfuls before they dove back in. Relearning each other’s mouths, each other’s bodies, fingers skimming across bare skin, tracing bone and muscle as they ground up against each other. Willy was almost as desperate to cum as he was to live in this moment forever, to never again let Mitch go. The harsh pants of their breath was the only sound in the room, echoing off the tiles, filling the basin of the tub with the sounds of them coming together again and again. 

“Here,” Mitch said against Willy’s lips, and Willy didn’t have time to ask, to process what Mitch might be saying before he was pulling away just far enough to get a hand in between them, to take ahold of both their cocks. He couldn’t quite get his fingers around them, not completely but it was enough, it was more than enough. Willy couldn’t think around the arousal coursing through him anymore, couldn’t do anything other than sit there and kiss and be kissed and let Mitch bring both of them closer and closer to the edge. 

“Mitch,” Willy said, gasping the word into Mitch’s mouth. “Mitch, Mitchy, I’m gonna–”

“Yeah,” Mitch said. “Yeah, do it, Willy, do it.” Willy let out a helpless, hurt noise, hips jerking forward as he fucked himself up into Mitch’s hand until he finally shook apart completely, cum splattering across both of their stomachs as Mitch continued to stroke both of their cocks. He didn’t pause, didn’t slow down, just kept up that same frantic pace until Willy was whimpering with it, overstimulated. 

“God, god, Willy,” Mitch said, leaning his head forward so that his lips were against Willy’s cheek, eyes screwed shut as his hand moved faster and faster.

“Please,” Willy said. “Mitch, please.” 

“_God_,” Mitch groaned, and his cum joined Willy’s in sliding down the expanse of both of their stomachs.

* * *

It was the sound that first caught his attention, the distant echo of Beethoven twisting its way through the halls of the house. It was enough to lure him out of bed, wrapping a bathrobe around himself as he went, feet padding softly across carpet and tile and wood as he made his way downstairs and through the main hall, until he finally found himself standing in the doorway of the large room just off of the main entrance. Kyle was shirtless, the panes of muscles in his back moving smoothly as his hands moved back and forth. Willy’s eyes slid down his back, following the dip of his back until it hit the grey waistband of his sweatpants before finally pulling them back up to the tousled mess of the back of Kyle’s head. He couldn’t catch more than the occasional glimpse of his husband’s profile, when he turned his face slightly to follow the path his fingers were walking across the keys. The sound swelled to fill the room easily. It had changed, at some point, from Beethoven to something that Willy couldn’t quite place, though the notes were familiar in a hazy way that had him swaying slightly in place. 

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Kyle said without turning, and Willy shouldn’t have been surprised that his husband had noticed his arrival, always so uncannily aware of his surroundings, but the sudden interruption of his voice made him jump slightly anyways. Kyle turned his head slightly, just enough that Willy could catch the small smile on his face, and he couldn’t help the smile that crossed his own face in response. 

“You didn’t,” Willy half-lied. He hadn’t been asleep, not all the way, drifting in and out, unwilling to rise yet and face the grey early morning light that had broken through the heavy curtains of their room. Down here, the light was far more insistent, though still muted, the sun not yet managing to haul its way over the horizon. The light gauze of the curtains didn’t do much to filter out the pre-dawn light though, illuminating Kyle’s skin, skittering across the glossy black of the grand piano. He hesitated for a second before pushing himself into motion, crossing the room to settle onto the bench next to his husband. Kyle didn’t stop playing, just slid over slightly to accommodate Willy. 

“I haven’t...” Willy started, trailing off before starting again. “It’s been a long time.” He kept his eyes on Kyle’s fingers, the skilled way they dipped from key to key, coaxing music from the strings buried within the wooden frame. “Since I’ve heard you play,” he clarified. Kyle hummed, noncommittal, though Willy knew they were both thinking something similar, something about how Kyle hadn’t untangled himself enough from his work in years to do something as… unproductive as playing an instrument. “It’s nice,” Willy said, leaning in so his shoulder briefly pressed against Kyle’s, pulling back before it could affect his playing. 

“I was worried I might have forgotten how,” Kyle admitted, making Willy laugh softly. 

“Like you would ever let that happen,” he said. “You probably haven’t forgotten a single thing you’ve ever learned in your life.” 

“I can't remember how to do long division,” Kyle said without missing a beat, making Willy laugh again, surprised and delighted. 

“How do you even know that?” he asked, and Kyle shrugged, finally giving up and letting his fingers slip from the keys so that he could turn and look at his husband properly. Willy tried not to let the disappointment show on his face as the sound of the music faded from the corners of the room, but he wasn’t sure he was entirely successful, not with the way Kyle was looking at him, something strange and wondering in his expression. He leaned forward, slow, telegraphing his movements but Willy didn’t move and eventually Kyle’s lips pressed against his own, a soft, gentle kiss, barely there. He couldn’t help the smile that stole over his face as Kyle pulled back, a matching smile on his husband’s face. Kyle turned back to the piano, the smile still lingering on his face even as he raised his hands to begin playing again, something entirely unfamiliar filling the room this time. Willy just watched, the way Kyle’s fingers moved across the keys like it was second nature, something taught to him so young and for so long that it would never fully leave him, never quite manage to erase itself from his mind. The smile faded from his face as Willy watched, replaced with a quiet concentration, the same focus he brought to everything he did but softer somehow, less sharp at the edges, less vicious at the core. His hair was a disaster, he must have come straight from bed to down here, not even stopping to look in a mirror. It was such an unfamiliar scene that it made something in Willy’s stomach twist, transported back to the early days of their marriage when he would catch Kyle like this frequently, sneaking out of bed early in the morning to play music or read or just sit outside, a cup of coffee in his hands as he watched the sun rise. It was such a precious moment of rest, something Kyle so rarely allowed himself anymore – and Willy couldn’t even remember, really, when it had stopped, when Kyle had finally cut all the soft moments from his life – but it was just as painful to witness as it was sweet. 

They sat there as the sun slowly rose, filling the room with a soft yellow glow, Kyle playing the whole time, meandering from song to song, the house echoing with the sound. 

* * *

Willy was half-considering dropping off when he heard a noise from behind him. The conservatory was warm, the heat from the day still lingering though the sun was dipping towards the horizon. He’d been reading, but his book had migrated to the cushion next to him at some point and he was mostly looking out the window through half-lidded eyes, listening to the distant chirps of birds and watching the way the fading daylight slid and fractured through the plants filling the rest of the space. He didn’t bother to stand, just craned his neck backwards, unsurprised to see that the sound that had disturbed him had been the noise of the door opening. What was a surprise, what had him straightening up, suddenly far more alert, was the sight of both Kyle and Mitch in the doorway. Kyle was looking at Willy, a strandly fond look on his face as Mitch looked around the room, his mouth open and eyes wide. 

“Yo, this is sick,” he said, walking further into the room, and Willy couldn’t help the smile that split his face. 

“Yeah?” he asked, and Mitch nodded without looking towards him, still taking in the metal frames of the window, the chandelier hanging above them, the plants threatening to overtake the room entirely. 

“I didn’t even know this was here, Jesus this house is big.” 

“Yes, well, welcome,” Willy said, gesturing around him. 

“Do you… are these… your… plants…” Mitch said, expression getting more and more pained as the words slowly made their way out of his mouth. Kyle snorted, and Willy looked towards his husband, shocked at the noise, something that Kyle would normally think was far too undignified to do. Kyle did look slightly embarrassed, and Willy had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from smiling. When he looked back at Mitch though he was surprised to see Mitch looking slightly worried, glancing back and forth between Kyle and Willy and, oh–

“I have a bit of a black thumb,” Willy said, hurrying to explain. “There’s no way I would be able to keep all of this alive.” 

“He tried, once, when he first moved in,” Kyle added. “Everything died. Even the cactus.”

“Hey!” Willy said, “the gardener said that cacti are way harder to care for than most people think.”

“Of course darling,” Kyle said, and Willy couldn’t help but grin, helpless to the wave of happiness that flowed over him just from this, from a moment of easy banter with his husband. Mitch was still looking back and forth between them but he no longer looked nervous, more… curious. 

“Why are you still here?” Willy asked, abruptly realizing what time it must be. Mitch’s eyes widened, and Willy rushed to continue. “Not in a– just, you’re usually gone by now. It’s late, for you,” he finished, slightly lamely, and watched as a blush shot up Mitch’s cheeks, obvious even in the fading light. Willy glanced over at his husband, noted the way that his tie was missing, his shirt slightly unbuttoned, and drew his own conclusions. He ignored whatever Mitch mumbled in response, barely audible as it was. He expected to feel… jealous, maybe even angry; the first reminder that he still wasn’t the only one sleeping with Mitch, that his husband was apparently still fucking him, that Mitch was still being fucked by Kyle. He didn’t feel any of that though, just a slight warmth, something like happiness, maybe, but more than that even, a surprising wash of arousal. It was hot, he realized, looking at the two of them, Mitch having wandered across the room to poke around the plants, taking a closer look at each one. The thought of them fucking while he was sitting here reading. They’d probably been in Kyle’s office – Willy wasn’t sure, but he was pretty certain that that was the only place the two of them had fucked. He wondered what they’d done, if Kyle had fucked Mitch. He could still see the way Mitch had looked with Kyle fucking him when he closed his eyes. Through all of the pain and fear of that moment he had still been painfully aroused, still felt a flash of heat when he remembered it, the noises that Mitch had made, the look on his face when Kyle had pushed into him. He’d looked beautiful like that, being fucked by his husband, taking it so perfectly. Willy had a brief second of remembering what they’d looked like when he’d caught them too, Mitch riding Kyle in his office chair, or maybe they’d fucked on that godawful uncomfortable monstrosity of a couch that Kyle loved so much. Willy thought about asking them, but he didn’t know how to, didn’t know if that was allowed, if that was a violation of the strange truce they’d drawn up. Still, he couldn’t help but think about it, watching Mitch as he worked his way around the room. He swallowed, glanced at Kyle to see his husband already looking at him with a considering look on his face. 

“Mitch was wondering where you were,” he said, not looking away from Willy. Out of the corner of his eye, Willy sees Mitch jump at the sudden breaking of the silence of the room. “I suggested we come look for you.” 

“Actually, he said you were probably in the conservatory and when I said that I didn’t know what or where that was, he said he’d show me,” Mitch interrupted, voice cheerful and apparently utterly unphased by the glare Kyle shot him. He didn’t bother to straighten from the crouch he’d fallen into, looking at the… purple-y flower things in the corner of the room. “He pouted about it for a bit first, it was cute.” Mitch winked at Kyle, and Kyle just frowned harder. Willy watched the exchange, fascinated. This was the first time he’d ever seen Kyle and Mitch really interact and it was strange to see, the way Kyle was just his usual distant self and Mitch was just his usual sunny self and yet somehow it didn’t seem to make them clash. Willy was more than well versed in his husband’s moods and expressions – he might look it, but he wasn’t truly annoyed with Mitch at all and it was so far from what he’d expected that Willy didn’t really know what to think of it. 

“Did you need me for something Mitch?” Willy asked, as Kyle finally stopped hovering in the doorway, walking over and sitting on the sofa across from Willy. Willy let out a relieved sigh, finally relaxing out of the awkward twist he’d settled into, trying to keep an eye on both of them without sitting up from where he’d been relaxing. Mitch finally stood up, turning to face both of them. 

“Nah,” he said easily, smiling wide. “Just wanted to say hi.”

“Ok, well, hi,” Willy said, and Mitch laughed. 

“Hi,” he repeated, walking closer. His eyes flicked to Kyle before he leaned over to press a soft kiss to Willy’s lips. Willy made a small noise of surprise but still pressed upwards into the kiss, welcoming the gentle heat of Mitch’s lips against his own. When Mitch pulled back though Willy’s eyes were already back on Kyle, with Mitch’s head quickly turning to match his gaze. The expression on Kyle’s face was as impassive as Willy had ever seen it, giving nothing away. They stayed like that for a long moment, suspended in the heavy silence filling the room before Willy mentally shrugged, raising a hand to tilt Mitch’s jaw, turning him back and down until Willy was able to capture his lips again. The kiss was stronger this time, harder, Willy moving his mouth against Mitch’s, still syrup-slow but with an undeniable heat that was absent from the first kiss. Mitch made a small noise, barely anything more than a hard inhalation, but it was enough to encourage Willy, to make him raise his other hand to rest against the long column of Mitch’s throat as he kissed him again and again. By the time Willy broke the kiss, settling back down, they were both breathing heavier, Mitch’s lips cherry red and wet, the swollen sheen of them visible even in the rapidly fading light. Mitch’s eyes didn’t move this time, stayed fixed on Willy even as Willy’s own gaze was inextricably drawn back towards his husband. Kyle was leaning forward, his arms braced against his knees, expression intent. Willy was jostled as Mitch suddenly sat down next to him, the addition of his weight onto the cushion making Willy sway, though he didn’t look away from Kyle. He kept contact even when Mitch leaned into him, even when Mitch’s fingers trailed over the vulnerable skin of Willy’s neck, even as his lips ghosted over the skin there, tugging down the collar of Willy’s shirt to trail chapped lips across the additional skin he found there. 

“Kyle,” Willy said, and then his husband was moving, was pushing up and across the space between them and just as fast as he had begun to move he stopped, settling onto the floor in front of Willy, apparently unconcerned about the fabric of his pants as he planted his knees on the concrete. Willy barely had time to let out a small noise of protest – he knew how much those pants had cost – before Kyle’s lips were meeting his own, swallowing anything Willy might have said as he parted his lips, ran his tongue along the swell of Willy’s lower lip. Willy gasped as Mitch’s tongue drew a matching line up the side of his throat and Willy could barely track what was happening now, four separate hands pressing against him, over and around and under his clothes, plucking at his shirt until he couldn’t stand it anymore, pulled back himself to tug it up and off. And it was like that was a signal, a sign that both Kyle and Mitch, unspoken, had agreed on, were waiting for, because everything suddenly felt far more pressing, more urgent, hands and lips and tongues moving faster, harder. Willy pulled back, gasping for breath and watched with wide eyes as Kyle and Mitch turned to each other instead, their lips meeting just inches from his face, Kyle’s hand coming up to hold Mitch’s jaw, keeping him still as Kyle’s lips parted, as his teeth grazed the red flush of Mitch’s lip. He waited again for the same sickness he felt last time, the fear and pain and uncertainty, but it still didn’t come, his head and heart clear but for another wash of arousal. He just wanted, both of them, together and apart and in every way possible. When they broke apart, they both turned back to him in a moment of strange synchronicity. 

“Clothes,” Willy said, his voice coming out low and wrecked. 

“Yeah,” Mitch said, and Willy was glad to hear that his voice was just as shaky as his own, that the other two men were just as affected as Willy himself. Kyle pushed himself to his feet at the same time as Mitch scrambled up, pulling his shirt off his head, shorts gone as well before Kyle had even managed to finish unbuttoning his shirt. He paused, standing in his boxers, and him and Willy both watched the slow reveal of Kyle’s chest, muscle and dark hair flashing between the crisp white cotton until he finally shrugged out of it and looked up to find both of the younger men staring at him. He looked uncomfortable for a second, just a flash, before he nodded towards Willy while his fingers sank down to his own belt buckle. 

“You too,” he said, undoing the belt, and Willy hastened to mimic his husband’s movements, raising his hips to slide off his own pants and briefs in a single push. When he next looked up Mitch was completely naked, Kyle down to his glasses and briefs. Willy swallowed and, when no one else made any move, gestured towards the cushions behind him. 

“Lie down,” he said to his husband, and Kyle gave him a considering look before he too removed the final piece of fabric covering him, sliding past Willy to lie on his back on the daybed. Willy moved after him, throwing his leg over Kyle’s waist. He stayed there, hovering above him, not touching, not yet, just looking, taking in the familiar shapes of him, muscle and bone, the scar on his hip from when he fell off a horse as a child, the dark trail of hair stretching the length of his torso. The expression on Kyle’s face might have seemed blank to someone who didn’t know him, but Willy knew him well enough to recognize the quiet calm for what it was: patience, observation, curiosity. Slowly, slow enough for Willy to stop him if he wanted, Kyle raised his arms, placing his hands on Willy’s hips, and that was when Willy heard movement from behind him, felt the cushion dip again as another body joined them. He felt the heat from Mitch’s body before he felt anything else, still looking down at his husband as another pair of hands reached out to wrap around his hips, long fingers laying atop of Kyle’s, matching anchors holding Willy still, holding him in balance. The hot press of Mitch’s chest followed shortly, pressing against Willy’s back, fusing them from shoulder to hip. Willy didn’t know how they’d gone from the franticness of earlier to this, this quiet, slow dance, the pads of Kyle’s thumbs rubbing over the jut of Willy’s hip, the air from Mitch’s lungs ghosting over his jaw as it escaped him in time with the give and take of his chest that Willy could feel against his back. Willy found his breaths matching Mitch’s slow, steady inhale and exhale without even thinking about it until it felt like they were all breathing in synch, a single, slowly undulating organism, a strange three-headed creature, flesh made anew and unrecognizable in the setting sun. When Mitch’s lips pressed against his neck, when one of Kyle’s hands slipped from his hip to run up his chest, it felt like an inevitability. Hours later, minutes later, when Kyle pressed inside of him, when Mitch’s arms wrapped tighter and tighter around him as his cock slid, wet and hard over the sweat-slicked expanse of Willy’s back, it was just a pre-ordained continuation of everything they’d done, everything they would do. And when he came, with Kyle’s name on his lips, with Mitch’s teeth dug into the meat of his shoulder, Willy found he was no longer afraid of the fractured pieces of himself hidden within his chest. He was still half-convinced this would end bloody, nothing left but tears and sweat and him alone, nails ragged and chest broken open with every single twisted thing he’d tried to keep caged within himself but he as he listened to Mitch pant into his ear, as Kyle twitched and spilled deep within him, he let his eyes slide shut and smiled anyways. 

However it ended, for now at least, there was this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel free to yell at me here or on [twitter](https://twitter.com/thotlander) :)))


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tysm helen for the beta you rock

Mitch blinked his eyes open slowly, the lids heavy and reluctant to separate. His entire body was sore, but the breeze blowing over his bare back was going a long way to making the aches fade into the background. He could hear the sounds of waves in the distance and, closer, the sound of cutlery scraping against china, the rattle of a cup meeting a saucer and the soft, familiar sounds of Willy and Kyle speaking to each other. Their voices were quiet, trying not to disturb him, and he couldn’t help but smile to himself, turning to bury his face in his pillow. It smelt like salt, ocean and and last night’s sweat intermingling with the fresh smell of laundry detergent, a scent that was quickly becoming familiar as well. He frowned into the fabric then. _Careful_, he thought, reminding himself of the promises he’d made to himself when he’d returned to work for Kyle and Willy, when he’d allowed himself the easy slide back into their beds and their shallow affections. 

He almost hadn’t done it, had almost thrown Willy out of his apartment and his life when the other man showed up at his place without warning. Or, he liked to think he could have, would have, if only it wasn’t for… if it wasn’t for the sadness in Willy’s eyes, like an endless hollow, hungry pit of need that Mitch couldn’t help but want to split himself open over, spill everything he was into it in a desperate attempt to be exactly what Willy wanted, what Willy needed. That had always been his problem really, ever since he was a kid, his mother warning him over and over again that his heart was too big, too open. His father had done his best to close it, he supposed, but there hadn’t been any saving him from himself. He grew and grew and gave and gave and it had been fine because he’d found people who gave in return, and he’d learned that there was always more of him to give, a seemingly endless fount of warmth and energy bubbling up within him. He gave with his smile and his words and his time and it truly seemed like it would never run out. And so when Willy had shown up, had asked him to come back to him and Kyle and the cold, echoing hallways of their home, there’d never been a question of what his answer would be, not really, not if he was being honest with himself. After all, he still had more to give, and Willy needed so, _so_ much. 

He cracked his eyes open, turned his head until he could catch the shape of Willy and Kyle sitting outside, at the table just through the open glass doors, the billowing curtains revealing and obscuring them in slow moving waves. He hadn’t thought much about Kyle until he was standing in front of the other man for the first time since they’d fought and Mitch had quit, Kyle’s eyes wide and uncharacteristically filled with surprise as he stared at Mitch, having almost run into him leaving an unfamiliar room in the house. They had exchanged stiff, awkward words, Mitch’s throat stinging with the taste of acid swelling up from below. However much he’d managed to forgive Willy, Kyle had felt like an impossibility. He was still incredibly hot of course, and the coldness and rudeness that he’d always treated Mitch with had made up so much of the attraction Mitch had felt for him in the first place, his desire to figure out what lay beneath all that cold distance, to see how far down the ice went. To the core, he’d discovered, and that hadn’t changed when he’d returned to their house and to their bed, though now there was no more mystery for him to solve. Mitch knew, with absolute proof, that there was nothing under the freezing exterior but more cold, a winter that would wipe him out if he let it, a blizzard that had already taken so much of Willy. 

Except… except for how it had that was maybe not completely true. Mitch didn’t know if it had happened before he’d returned, if it was something that had always been there and he just hadn’t understood Kyle as deeply as he’d led himself to believe, or if it had happened sometime after he’d returned, so slowly he’d barely noticed it. He certainly hadn’t noticed it in the first couple of weeks when he’d avoided Kyle completely, wouldn’t even stay in the same room as him, until eventually the tension knotted beneath his breastbone became too much and he’d sought him out for a confrontation that had rather predictably ended with him bent in half over Kyle’s desk, the other man slamming into him from behind, bruising his hips and shattering something deep inside Mitch. His self-respect, maybe, or whatever was left of the distance he’d maintained between himself and Kyle, and Willy, and the ragged, half-dead thing they called a marriage. Either way and no matter what it was, after he came back it was like he was witnessing a spring thaw, something strange and so intimate that he felt like he shouldn’t have access to it. He wasn’t so self centered as to believe it had anything to do with him. No, it was more the looks he began to spot being exchanged between Willy and Kyle, the fact that they now would willingly spend time in the same room as each other, a casual brush of their hands, Kyle pressing a kiss to the side of Willy’s head, the wide-eyed look Willy would give him in return. He wasn’t sure how fragile the peace between them was, was scared to ask in case he damaged it by accident, but he knew that that was what had made Kyle more… everything. More loud, more happy, more likely to smile. It was the fact that the thaw opened up to encompass Mitch though, that was the problem, that cracked his heart open to a forgiveness that he’d never intended to give. After what Kyle did to him, what he’d said to him… but then he smiled at Willy like he’d never had a single hateful thought about his husband, ran his hand up his spine in a gesture that spoke of the kind of love Mitch had never experienced, turned and smiled at Mitch too and Mitch felt the wall of anger and hurt that he’d built up inside of him crumble a little bit more. It was completely gone at this point, dissipated sometime in the fall, somewhere between him draining the outdoor pool and Willy telling him that he should still come over just as often, for just as long, so that they could keep spending time together. 

It was dangerous, what he was doing, he knew that. He’d made himself so many promises when he’d come back to work for Willy and Kyle, promises that he wouldn’t forgive or forget (broken), promises that he would keep his distance and not open his heart anymore to the two men (broken), promises that he wouldn’t, couldn’t, let himself want more (broken). Promises that he wouldn’t feel anything other than friendship for the two of them and it was that last one that threatened to break him if he broke it, and the worst part was that he wasn’t certain that he hadn’t already done so. There was a line, he knew, and he was pretty sure agreeing to go on a two week vacation with a married couple just because they’d asked with smiles on their lips and affection in their eyes firmly put him over it. Willy had seemed so excited though, leaning into Mitch’s space to show him the resort’s Instagram feed, tell him about all of the features that it had, the multitude of pools, the individual cabins. Kyle had leaned over too, as intense in vacation planning as he was in everything else, his voice overlapping and intermingling with his husband’s as he told Mitch about all of the activities that the resort offered: scuba diving and jet skiing and trips into the interior of the island to explore the jungle and maybe even hold a monkey. The way Mitch had straightened at that, his face breaking out into a smile before he could even think to stop himself had made Kyle laugh, and after that there was no point pretending that his answer was ever going to be anything other than _yes_. So here he was, spending his holidays with two married men instead of at home with his family and friends. Spending his holidays _lying_ to his family and friends about where he was and who he was with. He just… he didn’t know how to begin to explain it, so he didn’t, said he was going to visit an internet friend in the states for the holidays and then shut off his phone, didn’t post a single thing on Instagram. 

Now, lying here, far past the point where he could reasonably explain this to anyone, not even himself, Mitch breathed in, breathed out again, and finally sat up. 

Willy spotted the movement as Mitch was still trying to untangle himself from the light sheet that had wound itself around his body. He smiled over at Mitch, champagne glass resting delicately in his hand, and his smile was so bright, so happy, that Mitch had to fight the urge to look away. It was like looking into the sun, whatever small part of himself that was still concerned with self preservation warning him to look away, warning him that he was in danger of being blinded. Kyle turned to follow Willy’s gaze, and the small smile that graced his lips when he saw that Mitch was awake was finally too much, sent Mitch’s own eyes skittering downwards to where his hands were tugging at the sheet. 

“Good morning,” Kyle said, voice gravelly, but Mitch didn’t look up even as he felt his cheeks heat up. 

“Morning,” he mumbled as he finally got himself free, very aware, suddenly, of his own nakedness as Willy and Kyle both kept their eyes on him. He ran a hand through his hair before looking back up at them. “I need a shower,” he said, because he did, but more than that he needed a second, a minute without the pressure of the other men’s presence weighing down on his heart. Willy laughed. 

“Probably,” he said, voice teasing. “We didn’t do much… cleanup, before bed last night.” Mitch felt himself flush even redder as Kyle looked back down at his plate with a small, smug smile. Willy’s tone dropped into something less teasing, more normal as he spoke again. “Go shower, we’ll order more food so you can eat when you get out.” Mitch nodded, grateful. He determinedly ignored the almost tangible feeling of their eyes on him as he stood, the way his legs shook slightly when he pushed himself off the bed. He wanted to take the sheet with him, to have some small barrier, some protection from their gazes but he didn’t want them to know, didn’t want them to guess at what he was feeling, so he left it on the bed and forced himself not to fixate on the thought that they might very well still be watching him as he made his way across the room. 

In the shower, he tried his best not to think about anything. Not the two men outside, not what it meant that he had lied to everyone he knew to get there, not the way it had felt, all week, to fall asleep pressed between them. He focused instead on how good the hot water felt sluicing over sore muscles, the flash of heat that ran through his whole body when he pressed on the bruises on his hip, on his neck, the scent of the body wash as it filled the steamy air. He’d never stayed anywhere even half as nice as the resort that Willy had booked for them, and the shower was no exception to the luxury, a rainfall of water pouring over his head as he tilted his face back and let it wash over his face. Willy had insisted that him and Kyle would pay for the whole thing. Mitch had offered to pay for his own plane ticket of course, half his brain already frantically trying to figure out how the fuck he was going to work the cost into his budget even as the words left his mouth. Willy’s voice had been firm when he’d told him no though, that they had it. Mitch hadn’t even looked up the resort, didn’t want to know how much this place cost. The flight was bad enough, he really didn’t want to know how much money Kyle and Willy were spending on him joining them on their trip, even if they had insisted, even if having a third person in their bed didn’t really change anything in terms of what space they’d had to book. He’d almost made a joke about being their sugar baby, before swallowing it down. It would have been awkward, both in the knowledge that that was how Willy and Kyle had initially gotten together and in how much he wanted it to be true. 

The towel he wrapped around him was huge and warm and unreasonably soft, and it carried the safety and solitude of the shower with him all the way over to the dresser that Kyle had insisted they all unpack their clothing into, so that it wouldn’t get wrinkled in their suitcases. That corner of the room was well out of easy sight of the table outdoors but he could still see Kyle and Willy, the way that Kyle leaned in, a piece of strawberry on his fork, the way that Willy, laughing, took it into his own mouth. It was so clear how they existed as their own entity, whole and complete. Mitch dressed alone in the silent darkness of the room, taking a long moment to just breathe, to try and shove down the feelings that threatened to choke him, the ones that were growing stronger every day. He breathed, and breathed again, and finally stepped forward into the light of the open doorway. Their eyes returned to him as one, and he fought not to let his legs buckle under the burden of the futures held within them.

Breakfast was as incredible as every meal had been since they got to the resort, and when Willy smiled and leaned over to press a kiss to his lips, Mitch was helpless to do anything other than return it.

* * *

They were all more than a little bit drunk when they got back to the room that night. Willy had gotten ahold of two bottles of wine somehow, had gotten Kyle and Mitch to follow him down to the beach after dinner with flashing eyes that promised trouble, wicked grin curving his lips, the cool bottle pressed into Mitch’s hand like a dare. Fingers brushing against Mitch’s in a way that shouldn’t have made him shiver but did anyways. They’d sat in the sand, passing the bottles back and forth until they were both empty, until the flush high on Kyle’s cheeks was visible even in the low flickering light offered by the torches stuck into the sand, until Willy was slouching back in the sand, his shirt mostly unbuttoned, toned stomach shining with sweat and spilled alcohol. Mitch hadn’t been able to resist bending over, licking up Willy’s chest, tasting salt and the bitter tang of the wine, savouring the way Willy shook beneath his tongue as he laughed. The heat of Kyle’s palm pressed against his spine, encouraging, urging him onwards until he reached Willy’s neck and pulled away just to lean back in, to capture his lips in a kiss that didn’t have even the chance to be sweet before Willy was deepening it, turning it dirty and wet, tongue pressing against Mitch’s as his hand slid up the curve of Mitch’s neck to cup the back of his head. 

Kyle’s hand was like a brand against his back, a heavy, possessive weight holding him in place more suredly than any restraints as he lost himself in the familiar taste of Willy’s mouth, the sweet, happy noises he made as Mitch’s thumb stroked over his jaw. His other arm was half buried in the sand, barely stable enough to keep him suspended above Willy. It was intoxicating, not just the alcohol but the sense of being suspended between the two men, the weight of the night pressing down around them, not oppressive but like a warm, heavy blanket struck through with stars, tiny pinpricks of light watching them, witnessing the way they came together. The air was cooler than it had been during the day but it hardly made a difference, still syrup thick, the tang of the ocean and the faint crack of fire from the torches the only things penetrating Mitch’s senses, the only things that seemed real aside from Willy and Kyle, Kyle and Willy. It felt like they could have been laying in the sand like that for hours, for days, for minutes, before Mitch finally pulled away from Willy. He didn’t go far, his lips barely hovering above Willy’s, close enough that he could feel the air from his lungs as it escaped from its home inside Willy’s chest, wet, hot pants passing over his lips, his chin, as they both tried to regain their sense of place and time. Mitch felt more than heard Kyle move behind him, and when he finally looked away from Willy, from the way his eyes shone bright and dangerous in the torchlight, it was to the sight of Kyle’s large hand, held out towards him, an offering. Behind the hand, Kyle’s face was a flat mask, familiarity the only way to spot the hint of humour tucked in the corner of his mouth, the flush of want crawling its way up his cheeks. Mitch didn’t stop to wonder when he learned to see behind Kyle’s mask, just reached up, unthinking, to take ahold of the hand that was offered to him, rose when Kyle tugged. He didn’t look away from Kyle in the long, slow drag upwards, watched as Kyle’s eyes softened even more under Mitch’s gaze. He rose, and Kyle didn’t pause to let him settle onto his feet, just continued to pull Mitch towards himself, closer and closer until he was able to duck down and take his lips in turn. Unlike Willy, Kyle didn’t deepen the kiss immediately, kept it light, teasing, until Mitch was the one making noises of want and frustration, the hand that had been pulling him closer now holding him at a distance, making him wait, making him want. 

When Kyle finally stopped holding Mitch away from him, his hand sliding backwards to rest on his own chest, fingers still tangled with Mitch’s, Mitch all but fell into him, stumbling steps through the sand only not ending in disaster through Kyle’s own grace, his free hand sliding to the base of Mitch’s spine, steadying and strong. Mitch licked into his mouth, greedy for a taste of Kyle in turn, the intermingling of the two now more familiar than the taste of his own mouth, the stale loneliness subsumed by alcohol and cologne and always, always the salt; sweat and ocean intermingling, plucking at his nerves all the way down. Kyle detangled his fingers from Mitch’s, used them to cup the back of his head instead, drawing them even closer together. Mitch’s arms rose of their own volition, wrapping around Kyle’s back, holding the other man to him with a desperation and desire that he could only hope wasn’t as nakedly obvious on the outside as it felt to him. How much this was beginning to feel as necessary air clear to no one but himself and even then he allowed the thought to disappear under the fog of expensive alcohol crowding his mind, a problem for tomorrow, next week, never. The only thing that mattered, the only thing that _was_ was the taste of Kyle, the low noise he made when Mitch dragged his teeth across his lip. When they finally broke apart they turned almost in sync to see Willy, still sprawled on the sand, flushed and wanton, limbs askew as he looked up at them under dark lashes. The smile curving his lips, indolent and irreverent, couldn’t manage to mask the quick rise and fall of his chest, the redness that bloomed across his cheeks as he looked up at his husband and Mitch. When Mitch and Kyle reached out to him it was with a synchronicity that made something deep within Mitch twist, a twist that only grew when Willy took their offered hands with a bright smile, allowing himself to be dragged to his feet and into their arms, easy as anything. Kyle met his husband with a kiss, as familiar and warm as it was hot and needy, the smiles on both their faces clear even as Kyle coaxed Willy’s mouth open. Mitch knew better, knew that wasn’t what this was, but for a second, watching them together, he felt like he was nothing more than another indulgent prize, won by Willy and Kyle through power and youth and money, something for them to luxuriate in, to use and enjoy and eventually leave behind as they moved ever forward, ever upwards. The feeling was sudden, and hot with bitterness and the lingering worry that it was more accurate than he could bear to admit to himself. Still, when Willy pulled away from Kyle, biting his spit-slick lip as he looked between them, asking if they were ready to head back to their room yet, all Mitch could think was that as long as they wanted him, there was nowhere else he’d rather be. 

The room, with its unwavering, distant hum of steadily circulating air, was cool enough after the heat of the beach that Mitch shivered as the door closed behind him. It was a well worn dance that still felt brand new every time somehow; the brush of Willy against his back, the smile on his face as he looked over his shoulder, inviting Mitch to follow as he headed straight into the bathroom, Kyle’s caustic tone as he pointed out the sand now scattering across the floor following after the two younger men as they stepped into the bright white space of the bathroom. Mitch flinched away from the light, too much too fast, and Willy turned it off without asking. Mitch watched, leaning against the wall, cool tile sending goosebumps spreading across his skin, as Willy lit the candles scattered artistically across the countertop instead. The warm glow of the small flames sent sharp shadows sliding across Willy’s face as he turned back to Mitch, turning him into something just to the left of human, dangerous and wild. He stepped into Mitch’s space, ran a hand lightly down Mitch’s side, making him shiver. He tugged at the hem of Mitch’s shirt, encouraging, and Mitch obeyed easily, raising his arms and slipping his shirt off, letting it drop to the floor as Willy once again ran his hand down Mitch’s side. Mitch felt like he was burning up with want and the way Willy was looking at him, eyes dark as he undid the last couple of buttons on his own shirt and let it follow Mitch’s to the floor. He slid his shorts off, nothing beneath, and took ahold of the waistband of Mitch’s, tugging them down and following them to the floor. Mitch swallowed, rough and fast as Willy sank to his knees, face tantalizingly close to Mitch’s rapidly hardening cock. He looked up at Mitch through his eyelashes as he got Mitch to step out of his shorts, one foot at a time. When Willy stood back up without touching him Mitch let out a breath that he didn’t know he was holding. Willy had a smug, self-satisfied look on his face as he stepped up into Mitch’s space again, running a hand slowly up his chest. Mitch felt like he could feel the heat radiating off of Willy’s body, or maybe it was his own heat, sweat beading on his chest despite the chill of the air conditioning and that was when he heard something from the doorway, him and Willy turning in sync to see Kyle standing there, still clothed, shirt buttoned up almost to the top. Mitch still wasn’t used to seeing him in shorts, something jarring in it every time he saw the other man. He liked it, he thought. It was a bit unguarded, the armour of his suits stripped away, the bare curve of his calves exposed and strangely vulnerable. The look he was giving the two of them was full of its own darkness and heat though, and he made a vague gesture towards the two of them before leaning against the door, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Don’t stop on my account,” he said, voice low and rough, and Mitch bit down on the noise that wanted to wrench itself out of his throat. He glanced at Willy just in time to see a smile curl his mouth as he looked at his husband, a smile that bloomed into a full grin as he turned back to Mitch. 

“C’mon,” he said, tugging at Mitch’s arms, and Mitch followed after him easily, leaving more sand behind them as they stepped into the shower. Willy turned on the water, making sure the temperature was ok before he pushed Mitch backwards under the spray. The rush of water plastered his hair to his face, and he had to push it backwards, slicking it off his face just in time to catch Willy tipping his own face up towards the spray. He still looked almost inhuman in the diffuse light of the candles, his features angular and elven as the water turned his hair dark, sent the clear liquid rushing in rivulets down his exposed neck, dipping and sliding over his collarbone, down his chest, and Mitch was helpless to do anything but step forward and let his tongue trace the path of the water down, sinking to his knees in a mirror of Willy’s earlier motions. He was intensely aware of the fact that Kyle’s eyes were still on them, could almost feel him watch as he took his husband’s cock into his mouth. Willy tangled his hand in Mitch’s hair with a sigh, and Mitch couldn’t see his face anymore, couldn’t look upwards without getting water in his eyes but he could picture it exactly, the way droplets would bead on Willy’s eyelashes, the spreading flush highlighting his cheeks, the way he shivered slightly when Mitch tongued at the head of his cock, toying with the foreskin. There was sand under his knees, rough and grounding, competing with the water falling on his head and the soft feel of Willy’s skin against his tongue for his attention. He slid his lips further down Willy’s cock, taking him in deeper, and savouring the soft noises beginning to come from the man above him. Willy’s hand was gentle in his hair, not demanding, just holding on as Mitch bobbed up and down. Mitch’s other hand had risen to hold Willy’s hip, his thumb rubbing back and forth over the bone. A hand settled on top of his, and he cracked his eyes open to see the familiar shape of Kyle’s hand laid over his own, the other man now standing behind Willy, staring down at Mitch over his shoulder. Willy’s head was still tipped back, eyes closed, but as Mitch leaned back onto his heels, again pushing his hair out of his face, Willy’s head rolled forward as well, his eyes opening just enough for him to join his husband in looking down at Mitch, prostrate on his knees in front of them. Both of them were so beautiful, cast in the yellow glow of the candlelight, the sharp shadows of the night; dangerous, intoxicating, addicting. Mitch felt something bloom within his chest and tried desperately not to name it as he sat there, fighting not to buckle under the weight of their gazes, the need and expectation reflecting back at him just as clearly as the flicker of the flame. It felt like a supplication, a prayer, when he leaned forward again, licking at the head of Willy’s cock before taking him back into his mouth, Kyle’s hand pressing his own tight to Willy’s hot skin the whole time. 

He started slow, a teasing, languid slide up and down, taking his time, savoring Willy’s quiet gasps, the steady sound of the water hitting tile almost hypnotic. His own cock twitched when Kyle’s free hand joined Willy’s on the back of his head, Kyle far more insistent than Willy, a bit mean as he forced Mitch down, made him take more and more until the head of Willy’s cock was bumping against the back of his throat, nudging its way inside, drawing ragged breaths out of Willy, audible even over the sound of the shower, the rush of blood in Mitch’s own ears as he fought not to gag, to keep his breathing slow and even as Kyle let him briefly pull off before pushing him back down again, slow and inescapable. He didn’t know how long they spent like that, long enough that his knees began to go numb, long enough that the last granules of sand had disappeared, washed away and leaving them covered in nothing other than water and candlelight. It was Kyle who pulled him off, Willy’s hand slipping out from between Kyle’s hand and Mitch’s head as he tilted Mitch upwards to once again look up at the two men. He could only imagine what he looked like, his lips feeling hot and swollen as he stuck his tongue out to lick the last taste of Willy off of them. The two of them looking down at him was overwhelming, both of their attention on him making him feel stretched out, too big for his skin. There was a bruise blooming beneath Willy’s jaw and he realized that they must have been kissing while he was sucking Willy’s cock, Kyle bruising Willy’s neck, proprietary and distracting, Mitch barely even existing to them in that moment other than as something to use, something to propel up and down Willy’s cock. Mitch shivered at the thought, watched as Willy’s eyes widened, surprised and happy; as Kyle’s lids lowered, dark and dangerous. Kyle looked away first, turning to shut off the water, the silence deafening as the steady rush was replaced with only fading drips, quickly tapering off into silence. Willy helped Mitch to his feet, and he couldn’t help but wince as his knees protested the movement, soreness suddenly radiating through him. As soon he was upright though, Willy leaned in, kissing him until he couldn’t even remember ever having been uncomfortable. His arms rose to wrap around Willy’s waist almost of their own volition, pressing Willy’s hot skin tightly against his own as the air began to turn the water lying on his skin into tiny pinpricks of liquid ice, a shiver racing down his spine. The feel of fabric against his back made him jump, and he broke away from Willy to see Kyle smiling at them, his expression fond as he wrapped a huge towel around the two of them, binding them even closer together. He leaned in, taking his turn licking into Mitch’s mouth, Mitch helpless to do anything other than open up for it, letting Kyle in, letting him take everything, anything that he wanted. He was pressed impossibly close to Willy, trapped within the confines of the towel, and he thought that he could happily stay right there for the rest of his life. Eventually though, Kyle pulled away, a small smile still lingering on his lips. He nudged the edges of the towel he was still holding against both of them until Mitch and Willy each raised a hand to take ahold of it, keeping it wrapped around them as Kyle stepped away. He ran his eyes up and down the two of them, arousal as obvious on his face as it was in the hardness of his cock, long and thick against his leg. He didn’t say anything, just turned and walked back into the bedroom, and then they were following after him, Willy releasing their shared towel to grab one of his own from the rack on his way past, both of them drying themselves haphazardly, only as much as they were able to as they crossed the distance between the door of the bathroom and the bed, cool white sheets already turned down, beckoning them in just as surely as the sight of Kyle stretched out across them, his skin dark against the white cotton in the pale moonlight. 

Mitch watched as Willy reached the bed first, climbing up onto it with all the lean grace of a cat, his movements stalking, predatory as he crawled across the bed towards his husband. Mitch couldn’t imagine ever moving like that, didn’t even know if he could, the sway of Willy’s hips, the arch of his spine, the way his hands curled in the sheets; every part of him a perfect, carefully calculated seduction. His only comfort was the fact that Kyle seemed just as captivated as Mitch was, both of them unable to look away as Willy reached Kyle, swung his leg over Kyle’s waist so that he was straddling the other man. He kept himself hovering there, not touching Kyle as he raised an arm to run his hand through his still wet hair, sending droplets racing down his back and chest, pale and glinting in the moonlight. Like they had in the bathroom, the shadows that filled half the room cast Willy into something ethereal, something strange and untouchable, highlighting the dips between each of his ribs, the cut of his hips, the width of his thighs, the heavy swell of his cock, shining wetly as he shifted on his knees, getting comfortable. Kyle was no less painfully beautiful in the darkness, his face sculpted from shadows and moonlight, the long sprawl of his limbs somehow more powerful than vulnerable now that he was fully naked. Kyle raised his hands to take hold of Willy’s waist, tugging him down in a single, hard movement and bringing their hips together. Willy let out a gasp in unison with Kyle’s shuddery inhale, and then Willy was bending over, his hands carefully cradling Kyle’s head as he kissed him, slow and sweet. It should have felt like an imposition, Mitch thought, like he was a voyeur, unwelcome and out of place, but instead it felt like… not like a show for him, not with how wrapped up in each other they were, but still something he was a part of, somehow. When Willy reached out his hand without moving his mouth away from his husband’s, beckoning Mitch towards them, it didn’t feel like an invitation to something already happening, but just an extension, a joining, a continuation; like the three of them, even separate, were somehow always together. Mitch reached his arm forward, tangling his fingers with Willy’s and letting him pull him in until he had to clamber onto the bed as well, walking forward on his knees until he was next to where the two men had settled in the middle of the bed. Only then did Willy and Kyle finally break apart, Willy sitting back up, not even pausing for breath before he was tugging Mitch in, capturing his mouth in turn. He licked at Mitch’s mouth until he opened up for him, dragged his teeth across Mitch’s bottom lip in a way that made him acutely aware of how hard his cock was, aching between his legs, demanding to be touched. It was a distant need though, subsumed beneath the slow, heavy dance they were captured in, the deliberate steps they were each taking as they moved together and apart; something more than just a burning heat in the belly, precum beading and running down, empty clench of a body waiting to be filled. When they broke apart, Willy let his lips drag along the side of Mitch’s jaw until his mouth reached Mitch’s ear. 

“What do you want?” he asked, voice thunderously deep, vibrating within every part of Mitch. He shook his head, shrugged, overwhelmed with choice, with the knowledge that the answer just might be _everything_. That the answer could never be everything. He didn’t say anything, just looked between the two of them, feeling small and helpless, afraid of what was burning beneath his skin, what might slip from his lips if he wasn’t watchful, if he didn’t keep a careful eye on his heart. The expression on Kyle’s face, when he looked at him, was considering, calculating as he looked between the two younger men. 

“Why don’t you let Mitch fuck you?” Kyle suggested, the words making heat bloom even stronger in Mitch’s stomach, even before Kyle’s eyes shifted from Willy to Mitch, and he continued to speak. “And I’ll fuck Mitch at the same time.” Mitch sucked in a sharp breath. The thought of it, of being suspended between the two of them, Willy clenching around him as Kyle shoved deep inside of him was enough to send his hand snaking between his legs, making him squeeze the base of his cock against the surging rush inside of him. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, cum yet, not until he had the chance to be in exactly the position Kyle had described, not until he’d managed to fit himself as completely between the two of them as was possible. 

“Please,” Mitch said, voice rough, all he could get out before his throat was closing up with the sight of Willy smiling up at him, open and happy, the simple curve of Kyle’s mouth no less overwhelming as they both reached out and pulled him in. There was a moment of confused movement as all three of them tried to arrange themselves, a negotiation of limbs and Willy’s bright laugher intertwining with Kyle’s huffed noise of amusement, Mitch’s own laugh winding into the mix as he settled between Willy’s legs, Willy on his belly as Kyle pressed himself against Mitch’s back, fusing them together from hip to shoulder, his hands wrapping around him. Mitch rubbed his own hands over the round of Willy’s ass, mesmerized by the way that the smooth skin dented under the weight of his fingers, the faint impressions left behind as he trailed his way up to his hips and then back down. 

“Mitch?” Kyle asked. _What do you want?_ was unspoken but still hung heavy in the air, but Mitch knew now exactly what he wanted, how he wanted it, and when he opened his mouth it came spilling out, easy as anything. 

“I want to eat Willy out,” he said, and Willy sucked in a sharp breath, hips jerking backwards in silent approval as Kyle’s low chuckle vibrated through his whole body. 

“Yeah?” he said, voice low and soft in his ear. Mitch nodded as Willy looked back over his shoulder at them, his eyes wide. He bit his lip, and Mitch shifted his grip on Willy’s hips to raise them up higher. Willy’s face flushed, barely visible in the cool light of the night, before he turned and buried his face in the pillow, hiding. Mitch smiled, bent to press a kiss to the middle of his back, smiling wider when Willy twitched at the unexpected touch. He kept his grip on Willy’s hips as he kissed down his back until he reached the sharp protrusion of his tailbone. Moving his hands down and around, he dug his thumbs into the soft skin of Willy’s ass, spreading him open for Mitch. Willy twitched in response, squirming with a vague embarrassment of being so exposed that would disappear, Mitch knew from experience, the second he was touched again, whether by lips or tongue or fingers. Kyle’s hands were a steady presence against Mitch’s sides, his cock bumping up against Mitch’s back as Mitch decided not to wait any longer, ducking down to press the flat of his tongue over Willy’s hole, drawing a sharp gasp of surprise from the other man, audible even through the pillow that he pressed even tighter to his face. Mitch wished he could reach to grab the pillow, take it away, tell Willy that they wanted to hear it, wanted to hear _him_ and then, like he could read his mind, Kyle was doing it for him, his long body stretching out above him to tug at the fabric clenched in Willy’s fists. Willy turned his head, opened his eyes, his gaze sliding from Kyle to Mitch and back again. 

“We want to hear you baby,” Kyle said. “Let us hear you.” Willy resisted his pull for a moment longer before relinquishing his hold on the pillow, letting Kyle toss it to the side, leaving him spread out alone on the white sheet. Mitch wished he could take a photograph of him, show Willy just how amazing he looked spread out like this for him and Kyle to have and hold and devour. Or no, not a photograph. A painting, because that was what Willy deserved, hung in some obscure corner of their house to be stumbled upon and gossipped over by unsuspecting party guests; a scandal born of beauty and desire. Mitch knew that Willy got a lot of shit among the circles that him and Kyle whirled through, whining and dining and smiling and cajoling and threatening and bribing. That women saw the way their husbands looked at him, coveting, and were jealous; that their husbands looked at Willy with heat in their eyes and a sneer on their lips, that both slid poison under his skin dressed in compliments about his beauty, his youth, his marriage. Willy was so much more than what they saw, so much more than they could ever imagine and they sure as shit didn’t deserve him but Mitch still wished that he could make them _see_, make them understand what a prize they were missing, what a crown Kyle had won when he had placed that ring on Willy’s finger. They didn’t see Kyle either Mitch knew, not in any way that mattered, but he didn’t mind that as much. Kyle wouldn’t have it any other way, half his power in the hiding, in the underestimating and casual dismissal, and there was just as secret a thrill in being one of the only people to be granted a look behind that false face. 

Mitch leaned down and licked Willy again, keeping his eyes open and raised so that he could see the way Willy’s eyes drifted shut, the way his mouth opened in a silent gasp, his fingers clenching and ruching up the sheet. He smiled to himself, let his own eyes close as he sank into his task, savouring the taste of Willy blooming on his tongue, the twitch of his muscles against Mitch’s tongue, under his fingers. Kyle’s hands were back on his waist until they weren’t, and the shift of the mattress behind him gave away the secret of his departure. Mitch didn’t look around though, didn’t let it distract himself from his task. He knew Kyle would be back, just as he knew that it was that exact certainty – the sense that he knew Kyle, that he understood him, could rely on him, his actions, his presence – was all but guaranteed be the source of incredible pain for him in the future when it was eventually, inevitably, proven false. He focused instead on Willy, the moans dropping from his mouth like gifts as Mitch began to work his tongue inside of him, coaxing him open and making him sloppy with spit. When Kyle returned he was almost too distracted to notice, his fingers rhythmically clenching on Willy’s ass in a strange mimicry of the way he wanted to be moving his hips, the way he would be soon enough. The click of a cap behind him was the only warning he had for what Kyle was about to do before there was a hand on his hip, holding him still as a finger rubbed cold and wet over his hole. Mitch twitched, unable to help his instinctual shying away from the unexpected sensation, too cool against his overheated skin, but Kyle’s hand on his hip kept him still, and a second later he was relaxing into the sensation. Kyle circled the pad of his finger over Mitch’s hole over and over again, not pressing inside, waiting and waiting until Mitch was rocking his hips backwards in a silent plea. He tried to focus on the sensation of Willy opening up beneath him, moved one of his hands to press his own finger against Willy’s hole, but he couldn’t help but be torn between the wet noise of the tip of his finger teasing in and out of Willy’s hole as his tongue licked around it and Kyle’s slow, relentless tease. Both on their own were overwhelming enough, but when combined Mitch felt like he was about to come out of his skin. Kyle kept it up until Mitch wasn’t able to stop the desperate whine that escaped from his throat, rubbed raw with the need for something, anything more to happen. Kyle laughed, a bit mean, more happy, and he finally pushed inside of Mitch, a slow, inextricable press until the knuckles of his fingers were firmly pressed against Mitch’s skin. He twisted, and Mitch caught himself mirroring the motion on Willy, his own finger sliding deeper inside of Willy as he did so. Willy gasped as Mitch pressed further inside of him, nothing but spit and how open Mitch had licked him easing its way. He drew it out, pressed back in, did it again and again as Kyle did the same to him, his entire body lit up with the dual sensations, the sweet noises Willy was letting out, his mouth open, panting hot breaths against the sheet. Kyle pushing back into him with two fingers was a surprise but not an unwelcome feeling, and Mitch moaned at the stretch, stopping licking Willy to try and breathe through the feeling, resting his forehead against Willy’s ass. He didn’t realize he’d stopped moving his finger as well until Willy’s hand was suddenly weakly batting at his head. 

“Don’t stop,” he said. “Mitch, please, I need it, need more.”

“Yeah,” Mitch said. “Yeah, no yeah, I got you. I got you.” He pulled his finger out completely, turned around just in time to see Kyle pull his own fingers out of Mitch, squeezing more lube out of the tube until his hand was wet with it before handing the bottle over to Mitch. Mitch made sure his fingers were slicked up, then waited, two fingers pressed against Willy’s reddened hole, teasing, until he felt Kyle’s fingers return to his own hole. He slid inside at the same time that Kyle slid inside of him, matching his pace, the depth that he thrust into Mitch, doing the exact same to Willy. It was clear that they were all growing impatient, Kyle’s movements speeding up until he was drawing out and pushing back in with three fingers, far quicker than he’d moved up to two. Mitch twisted his fingers inside Willy once, twice more before he pulled them out, tapping three against his hole until Willy looked back at him, expression hungry and expectant as he met his eyes. He shook his head, and Mitch was ready to go back to two fingers, work him open more, but then Willy spoke and all thoughts flew out of his head. 

“It’s enough,” he said. “I’m ready, please, I’m ready.” Mitch choked on the air in his lungs, chest heaving. 

“You sure?” he asked, voice rough, and Willy nodded. Kyle pulled his fingers out of Mitch, leaning back, giving them space to rearrange themselves, and Mitch had to fight not to whine at the loss. 

“How do you want him?” Kyle asked, as if he was in charge of Willy, a level of control and ownership that shouldn’t have been hot but somehow was. The way that Willy’s eyes dropped, half lidded, a slow, suggestive smile curling his lips let Mitch know that he found it just as hot, was happy to give up his autonomy in this moment to his husband, let Kyle take the control he so strongly craved in every aspect of his life. Mitch swallowed, throat dry. 

“Like this,” he said, voice rough as he reached up to run his dry fingers down the curve of Willy’s spine, bumping over the bones in a long, slow drag, mesmerized by the way it made Willy arch further, eyes slipping shut. 

“Good choice,” Kyle said, nipping at the shell of Mitch’s ear. He reached around Mitch to take hold of Willy’s hips, tugging him up, into an even more exaggerated bow. He arranged him how he wanted; shuffling all of them slightly until Mitch was finally scant inches from the round curve of Willy’s ass, his aching cock tapping against Willy’s taint and balls, so close to where Mitch wanted, needed, to be. Mitch swallowed, eyes caught on the smear of lube left behind by Kyle’s fingers as he released his husband, moving his hands back to Mitch’s own hips instead. “You ready?” he asked, and Mitch nodded, a quick, jerky movement. Kyle used his lube coated fingers to take ahold of Mitch’s cock, guiding him up to Willy’s hole. He lined Mitch up, and then pressed forward on Mitch’s back with his whole body, every part of him working in tandem to guide Mitch into his husband. Mitch slid in quickly, easily, Willy’s body welcoming him in as it had so many times before, taking it like he was meant for it, meant for this – Mitch and Kyle working together to help him take Mitch’s cock. Willy’s mouth fell open in a wet gasp that Mitch couldn’t help but mirror as he slowly sank further into the searing heat of Willy’s hole, deeper and deeper until they were finally pressed as closely together as two people could be, Kyle’s hand leaving a wet smear of lube across Mitch’s stomach and waist in turn as he pulled away, leaving nothing between them. 

“God, Mitch,” Willy breathed more than said. “Mitch, _please_.” Mitch tensed his muscles, obeying that tone more on instinct than anything else, an innate desire to give Willy everything that he wanted, everything that he asked for that was surprising in its intensity but not in its existence. Mitch wasn’t so far in denial that he hadn’t noticed that particular instinct growing, blooming inside of him into something inextricable from who he was and what he did, but he wasn’t sure he knew until that moment just how deep it ran, just how much it had become something that existed beyond conscious thought. Kyle’s voice in his ear was probably the only thing that could have possibly prevented him from giving Willy what he wanted, so of course it was his low growl that interrupted Mitch’s thoughts. 

“Wait,” he said. “Wait until I’m inside you.” Mitch licked his lips, blinking desperately against the wave of heat sent rolling through him with those words, an arousal so intense it was almost dizzying. Beneath him, Willy twitched, his own fingers clenching and releasing on the sheets as he forced his eyes open to look back over his shoulder at Mitch and Kyle. Mitch met Willy’s eyes as the sound of fabric rustling came from behind him, the mattress shifting slightly beneath them until suddenly there was a familiar blunt pressure at his own hole, and Kyle was sliding inside of him, drawing a long, slow moan from his mouth. It was overwhelming, the dual sensations of Willy’s heat clenching down around his cock and Kyle sliding inside him, the thick stretch of him. He felt like he was burning up, drowning in sensations, and he realized that it was going to be all he could do to stop himself from coming too soon. 

When Kyle was finally as deep inside of him as it was possible to be, they all stopped for a long moment, each of them taking the same ragged, quick breaths. Mitch found it almost comforting; knowing that he wasn’t alone in feeling overwhelmed by this moment, like everything was approaching too much, even if he was the only one feeling it in a way that transcended base physical sensations. Kyle’s hands were gripping his hips so tightly that Mitch wondered if it might bruise, holding on to him as if he was the only thing keeping him tethered to this world. Willy, beneath them, seemed just as desperate for some sort of anchor, hands twisting in the sheets with an intensity that threatened to fully pull them off the mattress, his eyes squeezed shut as he breathed and breathed again. Mitch looked down, at the way his own long fingers curled around the curve of Willy’s hips, the sight of Willy’s hole, bare and pink and stretched wide to accommodate Mitch’s cock. Willy looked so fucking _pretty_, always and also especially like this, stuffed full of dick and panting for more. Mitch was fairly certain, in that moment, that there couldn’t possibly be somewhere in the world that was better than between these two men, that there couldn’t be a better moment waiting for him in his future than this exact one, joined completely as their breaths slowly fell into sync. Kyle’s thumbs rubbed over Mitch’s hips, gentle and soothing, a stark contrast to the strength of his hold on Mitch, the inescapable stretch of him inside of Mitch, forcing him open. 

Willy was the one who broke the silence, the spell of stillness that had settled over them, the whimpered plea barely making its way out of his mouth, only audible in the utter stillness that had surrounded them. The only other sounds were the faint rustle of the curtains in the wind, the distant sound of the salt water they’d so recently been lying and laughing in front of. They could be the only people left in the entire world and they would have no idea. Might as well be the last people in the world, for how little Mitch cared about the outside world at that moment. He couldn’t imagine needing anything else for the rest of his life other than this, the slow drag as Kyle finally began to move, pulling out of Mitch inch by inch. Mitch’s hips followed him backwards without him really thinking about it, though he couldn’t say if it was an attempt to keep him buried inside of him or just his body trying to move in pace with Kyle. Either way it meant that his own cock began to slide out of Willy, and he shuddered all over. He didn’t know what to do, how to handle this, how to move in a way that didn’t feel like he was being pulled apart by his nerves. Beneath him, Willy arched his back, gasping, and then Kyle was pushing forward again, sliding his cock fully inside of Mitch and forcing Mitch’s hips to follow the movement forward, sending him sinking all the way back into Willy in turn. He gasped, a loud, shocked noise forced out of him without his permission. There weren’t words to describe it, the way he felt as Kyle began to pick up a steady pace, one that had Mitch working in and out of Willy in turn. It felt like he had no control and too much control at once. No power (Kyle’s skin, pressing against his, his cock forcing him open over and over again, hard and warm and inescapable, his fingers a steady presence that moved him wherever Kyle wanted him) and too much power (Willy, mouth open and the red swipe of his tongue against his lips, the shine of sweat on his back, the clench of him around Mitch, the way he took and took, again and again, always asking for more, for whatever Mitch would decide to give him). The only grace was that Kyle and Willy seemed to be just as swept up in it as Mitch, Willy’s hips rolling back against Mitch’s, forcing him deeper than he would otherwise be able to get himself, too caught in Kyle’s hold as Kyle fucked him again and again. The sound of skin slapping against skin joined the other sounds in the room, until Mitch couldn’t hear anything else, couldn’t think about anything else except for them, the sounds they made as they came together, his own blood pounding in his ears. He had no sense for what noises he was making, what rushed and bitten off words might be falling from his mouth to join Willy’s whimpered pleas, Kyle’s praise and demands. 

“Please,” Willy said, and Mitch slammed his hips forward, harder and faster every time, getting as deep inside of him as he possibly could. 

“Just like that,” Kyle said, and Mitch paused on his downstroke every time, buried in Willy as Kyle shoved inside of him, in and in until Mitch had nothing else to give. 

He was nothing more than raw nerves strung out between the two of them, giving and taking until he was certain he would die of it, that this would be the thing that finally laid him bare and stole the final breath from his lungs. It felt incredible, like safety and home and something he’d never experienced before, the overwhelming sense of being held, of being utterly and completely owned. It felt terrible, a gilded cage holding him between the two of them, a trap that he had willingly wandered into but which he might have to gnaw off one of his own limbs with broken and bloody teeth for him to have even a hope of getting free of it. 

Willy pushed up suddenly, struggling onto all fours and then up onto his knees, Mitch and Kyle rocking to a slow, careful stop at the movement. When Willy finally got himself upright and sank back down onto Mitch’s lap it forced Mitch impossibly deeper inside of him, pushed Mitch even more firmly down onto Kyle’s lap, leaving the three of them not quite stacked all atop Kyle but not quite not. Willy’s arms reached back over his head, grasping, seeking. Mitch figured he’d found what he was looking for _(Kyle, always Kyle)_ because he began moving again, riding Mitch this time. Mitch whined somewhere deep in his throat, a sound he’d never heard himself make before, and Kyle’s laugh was like ice and fire all at once, and then they were all moving together again. It was smooth, coordinated, like they’d done it before even though they never had, like they’d do it again, even though Mitch was worried it just might break his heart. He was too wrapped up in it, trading sensations and desire and then suddenly he was there, standing on the precipice and only a few minutes from stumbling over the edge. 

“I’m gonna–” he said, and Kyle and Willy both groaned. 

“Do it Mitch,” Kyle said, “come for me, come for Willy.” Willy spoke over him, making it difficult to hear either man’s words as a unique sentence, their singular minds behind the thought, instead merging them into something otherworldly and dangerous. A hunt, and he didn’t know who was the prey except for how he was certain it was him. 

“Come in me,” Willy said, under and over Kyle. “Please, god, Mitch, come in me, fill me up, with your cock, with your cum, fuck me, _please_.” Mitch wasn’t there yet, and then suddenly he was, hips juddering as he shoved as deep inside Willy as was humanly possible, jackrabbit quick thrusts making both of them shake as he did what Willy had asked, while he filled him up and marked him up, like he had a right to him, like he had half the claim Kyle had to do the same. Mitch was twitchy, shaky with aftershocks even as Kyle continued to fuck him, pace not faltering for even a second, even as Willy sank down onto the bed, sending Mitch’s softening cock slipping from his body and coaxing moans from both of their mouths. 

“It’s too much,” he finally gasped, when the drag of Kyle’s cock over his prostate became more pain than pleasure. “Kyle, please, it’s too much.” He couldn’t see Kyle’s face before he said it, when he said it, but he thrust into Mitch a handful more times before he finally tipped him over, hands still steady against his waist as his cock slid out of Mitch and Mitch’s body collapsed to the side like a deflated balloon, already missing the press of Kyle inside of him, overwhelming as it had been. It was worth it though, to watch through barely open eyes as Kyle lowered himself over his husband, murmuring something in his ear that seemed to have a positive effect, making Willy take a deep breath and releasing all of the tension from his body. He spread his legs like it was nothing, like it wasn’t the most beautiful sight in the world to watch him tilt his hips up and welcome his husband inside of him. Mitch realized, suddenly, that Kyle was sliding through Mitch’s cum, was getting it on his cock and forcing it deeper and deeper inside of Willy with every thrust. Willy was gasping like he couldn’t get enough air, face scrunched up and flushed red, still twisting the sheets, and without thinking Mitch reached out, laid his hand next to Willy’s, fingers barely brushing. The second the contact was offered though, Willy took it, palm to palm and finger to finger as he held on and let his husband ride him, let him fuck him over and over again. Mitch wondered how Willy felt, how it felt to have another man’s cum worked so deeply inside of him, to be fucked twice in a row and Mitch suddenly realized he had no idea if Willy had come, if Wily was still hard, pressed tight against the mattress and unable to get a hand on himself, or if he was wet, sliding around in his own mess, as overstimulated as Mitch had been. His fingers tightened at the thought, prompting an answering squeeze from Willy as Kyle fucked in and out of him again and again, the unrelenting slap of skin on skin still somehow managing to make Mitch dizzy with want even though it was no longer his skin against someone else’s but Kyle’s against Willy’s, even though there was no possible way he could do anything but lie exactly where he was, possibly forever. 

Willy was jolting forward with every thrust of Kyle inside of him, both of their breathing getting harder, faster, and Mitch recognized the signs of Kyle getting close, watching the familiar way that his thrusts began to falter, throwing him off his steady, unrelenting pace as he came closer and closer to that final tipping point. Mitch could feel the movement in his own body like an echo, his hole clenching down around nothing, his hips rocking slightly in an unconscious mimicry. Kyle was pressed up on his hands, palms flat on either side of Willy’s head as he shoved himself in and out of his hole. Willy’s entire body was flushed, pale and pink even in the shadow cast by Kyle’s body fucking in and out of him, swaying back and forth above him. Kyle’s eyes slipped shut, his head dropping as his mouth fell open in an almost silent gasp, shoulders rising up as his hips shoved into Willy desperate, frantic, until finally, finally, his entire body shuddered like it was coming undone, and his motions slowed to a barely-there rocking, working through the last spasms of his orgasm as his cum joined Mitch’s, filling Willy completely. Willy was shaking, a steady tremble, his grip on Mitch’s hand still like a vise, like Mitch was the only thing tethering him to this world, like he was worried that without something to anchor him, something to hold onto, he might just float up and away. Mitch could sympathize, felt like he was in danger of losing himself in that moment, that he was barely present, or maybe too present, too aware of the way that Willy’s and Kyle’s breaths were finally beginning to slow. 

Kyle leaned down, falling to one elbow, other hand still bracing himself above his husband and Willy turned his head, stretched his neck out like he’d somehow just sensed what Kyle was going to do, knew it before his husband even began to move. Their lips met, and Mitch couldn’t do anything but watch, didn’t want to do anything but watch as they kissed, slow and full of the type of love that Mitch had at one point thought just didn’t exist between the two of them, that, as far as he knew, very well might have never existed between them. But it had and it did, he knew now, saw now, had seen it more and more over the last couple of months. What had once existed between them resurrecting and blooming back into something more beautiful than Mitch knew what to do with; a neglected garden, the choking weeds trimmed away, finally being given the room to grow and breathe and blossom into an explosion of riotous colours. They had grown, had stretched their roots deep and spread their leaves wide and at some point Mitch had gotten so ensnared in the thorns of them that he wasn’t sure he had any chance of escaping without tearing himself to shreds. They broke the kiss, turning as one to smile over at Mitch, lazy and warm and gentle, and Mitch felt himself begin to bleed.

* * *

Mitch spent almost three weeks after he got back hiding from everyone he knew except for Travis. Part of it was strategic – it wasn’t like he would have gotten a tan, however temporary, if he’d actually been in Colorado in December. Most of it though, most of it was just that he wasn’t ready to see his friends, was too scared the second he looked into one of their eyes his mouth would tip open and all of his secrets would come tumbling out. Auston was the most dangerous one, the only one who knew… not everything about the relationship between Mitch, Kyle, and Willy, but enough, more than everyone else. Was the one with the most information, who therefore had the highest likelihood of looking into Mitch’s eyes and _knowing_. So Mitch had been ignoring everyone, had squirreled himself away in his apartment and used homework and readings as shields against every text and call, claimed faulty phone chargers, vague family stuff, needing to spend time with Zeus. He didn’t know how long he would have had the strength to keep ignoring Auston’s texts, fighting against every instinct he had that told him to spend time with his friend, to confide in his friend, but it didn’t matter in the end. Auston had always been pushy, had never handled being ignored well. 

It was just after noon on a random Wednesday when his phone rang and he picked it up without checking the caller, figuring it was 50/50 odds of it being his mom or a telemarketer. 

“‘lo,” he said, already getting ready to hang up when the sound of his mother’s voice didn’t immediately answer him.

“Hey,” Auston said instead, and the sound of his voice, so unexpected, made Mitch jump slightly, almost spilling his tea all over his lap. 

“Fuck,” he said, quickly setting it down on the coffee table, barely managing not to fall over in the tangle of blankets that he was absolutely _not_ mentally referring to as his sadness nest.

“I’m out front,” Auston said, apparently utterly unconcerned about Mitch’s reaction to him calling. “Come down. We’re gonna go get lunch.” 

“What?” Mitch said, still trying to free his legs from the blankets. 

“We’re going to lunch,” Auston said. “I know you’re not busy, I texted Travis and he said you’re just in the living room wallowing and watching Grey’s.” 

“No I’m not,” Mitch replied automatically, glancing at the screen where Christina was currently picking a fight with an orderly. 

“Come down,” Auston repeated, voice turning hard. “Don’t make me come up and drag you out.” He hung up, and Mitch sighed, finally kicking himself free. Auston, he knew from fairly painful experience, absolutely wasn’t joking, so he turned off the TV before heading into the kitchen to pour his tea down the sink. He passed Travis on his way back to his bedroom to grab his wallet, his roommate looking slightly guilty as he peered out of the doorway of his own room. 

“Traitor,” he said on his way back past him.

“It’s for your own good,” Travis said. Mitch ignored him, bending to put his shoes on and give both dogs a quick scratch behind the ears before slipping out the door. 

Auston’s car was double parked right in front of the doors. Mitch could just make him out through the passenger side window, drumming on the steering wheel and apparently completely unconcerned by the occasional angry horn from other drivers forced to go around him. Mitch braced himself, and pulled open the door, climbing inside and into a wall of sound, Auston’s music loud enough that it was probably giving him hearing damage. He reached over to turn it down, a familiar, habitual motion. Auston didn’t look at him, just continued to hum along to the music as he checked over his shoulder before pulling out, ending his disruption of the flow of traffic down the narrow street. Mitch fiddled with the frayed seams of his jeans. Auston would speak when he was ready, he knew. He didn’t have to worry about guessing what Auston was thinking, how he was feeling – the one comforting consistency of being his best friend was the fact that Auston was always, unerringly, uncompromisingly, honest with him. He’d witnessed Auston’s well-practiced facade of expressionlessness crumble too many times not to know what he looked like when he was putting on a front anyways. Right now, Auston was firmly in peace-keeping mode, hiding the anger Mitch knew he was entitled to, probably saving it until he no longer had to focus on navigating the aggressive Toronto traffic. Mitch turned away, looking out the window, and tried to think about what he was going to tell him. He supposed he could just wait and see what Auston would ask him, but there was a reason he’d been avoiding the other man. He _wanted_ to tell him, wanted to talk to someone, anyone, about this. Auston was both the perfect person and the worst person to speak to too; all but guaranteed to be able to pry the truth from Mitch’s guts and far too knowledgeable about the situation to not be able to comment with an accuracy that Mitch really didn’t feel ready to face. 

Still, Auston had him well and truly trapped, and the part of Mitch that wanted to have this conversation maybe just barely outweighed the part that wanted to avoid it forever, based on the strange sense of relief that flowed through him as Auston steered the car through traffic, the sound of him loudly swearing at other drivers so familiar it just made him feel even calmer. When Auston finally pulled the car to a stop it was, unsurprisingly, at a valet stand, and Mitch climbed out as Auston went through the familiar steps of handing over his keys to the very bored looking man standing at the podium. Mitch had stopped fighting Auston’s desire to buy them very expensive lunches at places Mitch could never afford years ago. Freddie had helped Auston win that argument, which had been a slightly hilarious conversation as Freddie tried to figure out a way to insist that he didn’t mind Auston buying Mitch stuff that didn’t make it sound like he was acting like a sugar daddy to both of them. Mitch almost smiled at the memory as the hostess gestured them into a booth at the back of the restaurant. It was a light, airy place, all bright white tiles and gold fixtures and big green plants. Very Instagram, which meant it would be either just the standard level of overpriced for Toronto, or so expensive that it would make Mitch need to repress it real hard. He glanced at the menu, saw that there were no prices listed, and mentally categorized it as the second. He looked up at Auston, but his friend was perusing his own menu with an intensity that he almost certainly didn’t actually feel, that definitely wasn’t warranted by the fairly straightforward collection of dishes and drinks, and Mitch realized that Auston must be planning to get _into_ it with him, if he didn’t want to say anything until they’d already ordered. He briefly wondered if they should even be having this conversation in public, but if this was where Auston wanted to talk, this was where they would talk. It wasn’t like he needed to worry about his reputation if he embarrassed himself in some posh little restaurant. 

As predicted, it wasn’t until a waitress had come and gone with their drink and food orders that Auston finally looked Mitch fully in the face. His face was angry, the illusion of neutrality he’d been carrying since he’d picked Mitch up finally falling away, but there was an edge of sadness to it, of hurt, that immediately sent guilt rolling through Mitch’s stomach. He’d known, even as he’d been doing it, that ignoring Auston like that was sure to hurt his friend’s feelings, but being confronted with it, having it confirmed, was a different thing entirely. It made him ache, immediately edging towards tears as he stared into Auston’s face. 

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out, before Auston even had the chance to open his mouth. Auston’s frown deepened, and Mitch hastened to continue. “I shouldn’t have been avoiding you. It wasn’t… it wasn’t anything to do with you, and I shouldn’t have done it.” Auston’s face twisted, Mitch’s apology making hurt overtake the anger, which really hadn’t been what Mitch was hoping for. 

“Why did you do it then?” he asked. “It had to… why didn’t you want to talk to me?” Mitch shook his head, swallowing. 

“I didn’t… I didn’t want to tell you what I’d done.” Auston stiffened, staying silent as the waitress came by with their drinks, his gaze intense and unwavering in a way that made Mitch kinda want to slide under the table to hide from it. 

“What did you do?” Auston asked, voice sharp, and Mitch didn’t understand wh–

“Not– nothing to do with you!” Mitch said, abruptly leaning forward. “Or Freddie, or, or anything with our friends or whatever you’re thinking it’s not… it’s not _bad_.” Auston was still frowning, but it was now in confusion rather than anger. 

“If it’s not bad why have you been avoiding me? Why are you still trying to talk around it? What the hell Mitch,” the last was less a question and more a statement, and Mitch picked up his drink, taking a healthy swig of the cocktail before swallowing, forcing himself to look back at Auston, to meet his eyes. 

“It’s about Willy and Kyle,” he said. 

“Willy and K– ohmygod,” Auston said, his eyes widening as the words rushed out of his mouth all at once, slurring together in his surprise. _”Mitch,”_ he said. 

“I know,” Mitch said, voice miserable. 

“Mitch,” Auston said, voice dropping down to a hiss as he leaned in. “What the fuck dude?” 

“I _know_,” Mitch repeated. “It just kind of… happened.” 

“I didn’t even know you were still working for them, let alo– wait,” Auston said, straightening back up. “Wait, what are we talking about here?” 

“Willy and Kyle,” Mitch said, trying and failing to keep his voice from sounding like he was describing his own death sentence. “And how I think I’m falling in love with them.” 

“Jesus Christ,” Auston said as the waitress arrived with their food. Mitch looked down at the plate in front of him blankly before Auston’s voice made him raise his head again. He wasn’t talking to Mitch though, was looking up at the waitress. “Can we get a second round of drinks?” he said. “And a shot of tequila, each?” The waitress gave both of them a doubtful look, eyes skipping from their barely touched drinks to each of them in turn before clearly deciding she didn’t actually care, nodding her head and walking away. 

“Dude, you drove,” Mitch said. Auston froze like he’d forgotten, then shrugged. “So both the shots will be for you,” he said. “You need them both anyways, fuck, Mitch.” Mitch nodded. 

“Yeah,” he said. 

“What– how did– I didn’t think you were still even working for them?” Auston said. “You don’t usually keep doing pool cleaning when you’re back in school? Or are you not working for them? You’re just sleeping with them? Oh my god Mitch are you dri–”

“I’m still working for them,” Mitch interrupted. He hesitated, not sure if he wanted to admit to the next part, afraid of how much worse Auston might judge him, how much worse he would _worry_. Part of him couldn’t help but worry too, about what it would do to Auston’s relationship with Willy, though he also felt like he was more than justified in being just a little bit selfish, for once. Auston was looking at him, expression open and curious and Mitch felt himself crack open, just like that, the need to talk about this overwhelming every other thought, every other instinct. “I quit,” he admitted. “Towards the end of the summer. Not because of school or anything, but because I found out…” he trailed off, took a couple bites of his food instead. Auston let him have a moment, began eating too, but he kept glancing at Mitch, face expectant and open, free of judgement and eventually Mitch couldn’t keep himself from continuing any longer. “I found out that they weren’t actually in an open marriage,” he said. Auston frowned, thinking through what that meant. 

“They were both sleeping with you though,” Auston said, and Mitch could see the second he realized it, the second he understood, looking at Mitch with wide, horrified eyes. “They were cheating on each other, with you,” he said, and it only took a second longer before his face shifted from open surprise to thunderous anger. “I’m going to fucking kill them,” he said. 

_”No,”_ Mitch said, leaning forward. Auston looked back at him, surprise and anger filling his face. “No, Auston, please, you can’t tell them, you can’t tell _Willy_ I told you this.” 

“Why the fuck not?” Auston asked. “Mitch, that’s so fucked up, you get that right? Like that is so fucked up, Jesus Christ.” Mitch nodded, sighed. 

“I know,” he said. “But Willy, he apologized, and Kyle was Kyle and it was… it sucked out loud and for a while there I really thought I might be able to pull off hating them but…” he trailed off, picking at his food some more to avoid continuing. When he looked up at Auston though, his friend’s face was full of understanding. 

“You forgive too easily dude,” Auston said. “You know that right?” Mitch nodded. “Even people who don’t deserve it,” Auston added, and Mitch knew he wasn’t just talking about Willy and Kyle anymore. 

“I know,” MItch said. “Believe me, I know.” He took another bite of his food, not looking up until Auston did the same, until they could both use the meal as an excuse not to keep going, not to keep poking at Mitch’s wounds for at least a little bit. Auston let him have it, waited until their plates were clear and the waitress had brought over the second round of drinks before he met Mitch’s eyes, pushing both of the shots towards him. 

“Ok,” he said, “whatever you want to tell me man, I’m here for you.” 

“Thanks dude,” Mitch said, smiling at the earnestness on Auston’s face, before he thought again about what he was about to have to explain. He sighed, picked up one of the shots, and downed it, making a face at the rough burn of the liquid hitting the back of his throat. Auston’s expression, when he put down the glass, was slightly more concerned than before, and Mitch scrubbed his hand over his face and tried to figure out where to even begin to unpack the trap he’d found himself tangled deeper and deeper inside. “Fuck,” he finally said, “I don’t even know where to begin.” 

“The beginning?” Auston suggested. “This summer, you told me you were sleeping with both of them but it was like me and Fred.” Mitch nodded. 

“I did just assume,” he admitted. “I didn’t ask, and they didn’t actually like, lie to me–”

“That does _not_ make it ok,” Auston interrupted, and Mitch nodded. 

“No yeah, like, I know, but just… I dunno, I feel like I should have asked? Or not have just assumed it? Like, there’s probably like, statistically way more people cheating on their spouses than there are open marriages.” Auston’s mouth twisted. 

“Probably,” he admitted. “That still doesn’t make it ok.” Mitch nodded, though he wasn’t sure he completely agreed. 

“Well, in August I found out that they didn’t actually have an open marriage, Kyle said something and then it ended up in this big fight and I quit.” Mitch thought, briefly, about admitting the order of events to Auston, that it had been just Willy, to start with, that Kyle had actually started sleeping with Mitch in _revenge_, but decided that this was bad enough, painful enough, without inserting that additional shard. He was probably going to have a hard enough time convincing Auston not to like, egg their house as was. 

“But you went back?” Auston asked, and Mitch nodded. 

“Willy came to see me,” he said. “He apologized and like, told me his side of it and…”

“And you forgave him,” Auston finished. Mitch made a face. 

“I guess? I didn’t at first, not really, like I accepted his apology and came back to work and… stuff.” 

“Started sleeping with him again,” Auston interpreted. Mitch rolled his eyes. 

“Yes, fine, started sleeping with him again.” 

“And Kyle?”

“Yes, and Kyle. Jesus,” Mitch said. Auston just looked at him, obviously unimpressed. “I guess eventually I did actually forgive them,” he admitted. “It was just… I didn’t realize how tense things were until they weren’t anymore, y’know? Like, I hadn’t realized that Willy wasn’t ok until he started to be ok, didn’t realize that Kyle had a setting other than _on_ until I saw him finally letting it go a bit.” Auston frowned. 

“Willy never mentioned any of that,” he said. Mitch shrugged. 

“I don’t think he likes to talk about things, his feelings or whatever,” he said. “And…” he hesitated, then continued. “I don’t think he has many friends.” Auston’s expression turned offended. “No, I know _you’re_ his friend,” Mitch said before Auston could get any more upset. “But like, not like really really close friends, the kind you talk to if you’re not happy in your marriage, or you’re feeling like, super alone.”

“Willy feels alone?” Auston asked, frowning. 

“His best friend was sleeping with Kyle,” Mitch said at a whisper, watching as Auston’s eyes widened. “For like, a year. Willy told me about it, when we were both kinda drunk and Kyle was off somewhere. They both lied about it to his face.” 

“Jesus,” Auston said. “Why the fuck does he stay with him?” Mitch shrugged, helpless to explain it. 

“I guess he just loves Kyle too much to leave,” he said, and Auston’s expression turned sad. “It’s not– it’s better now,” Mitch added. 

“What does that mean?” Auston asked. 

“I dunno but it’s like… I don’t know what conversations they had, when I quit, but between when I quit and when I came back, and ever since… Kyle’s home more, he spends more time actually hanging out and doing stuff and not just at work. And Willy seems like, happier and has been going out and doing things more and like, I don’t think I even realized how much him hanging around the house was him like, hiding or whatever? But now he goes out, and Kyle’ll even go with him and they’ll bring me along some times and we’ll go to like museums and– did you know Willy’s really into art? He–”

“Mitch,” Auston interrupted, eyes getting wide. “What are you… are you dating them now?” Mitch flinched back from his friend. 

“No,” he said. 

“It kinda sounds like you are dude,” Auston said. Mitch shook his head, hard. 

“I’m not,” he said. “They don’t want that, they want… I don’t know, to have fun sex with their pool boy or whatever, while they sort out their relationship with each other. Maybe they just want me around as some sort of like, buffer, I don’t know.” 

“You haven’t talked to them about it?” 

“I'm scared to,” Mitch admitted. “I think it’ll fuck everything up, and I like what’s happening, I like… I like being around them.” There was a long pause as Auston obviously tried to figure out what to say next.

“It sounds like it’s pretty fucked up already,” he finally said, voice slow and even. “It sounds like they’re using you as like… a sex therapist.” Mitch snorted, but it came out less amused and more hurt. 

“Fuck, maybe,” he said. He paused, decided to confess. “I lied,” he said, and Auston frowned at him. “Over the holidays, I didn’t… I went with them, to an island.” Auston’s eyes widened, and he leaned forward. 

“Seriously dude?” Mitch nodded. “_Seriously?_ You told everyone–”

“I know,” Mitch interrupted. 

“Bro,” Auston said, leaning back. 

“I know,” Mitch said again, hating how sad and small his voice sounded. There was a long pause, both of them digesting everything that Mitch had just divulged. 

“And you think you’re falling in love with them?” Auston finally said. Mitch reached out, picked up the second shot.

“Yeah,” he said, and downed it.

* * *

After his conversation with Auston, Mitch managed to avoid discussing it with anyone else, which he was grateful for. The worried looks Auston was giving him every once in a while, the conversations about his _feelings_ that he kept making Mitch have with him, was bad enough – he definitely didn’t need to add anyone else’s concern into the mix. He could admit though that it was probably because of this lack of outside perspectives that he was able to sink back into Willy and Kyle’s lives so easily after the winter break. It was both better and worse, sweet and bitter; the stretched, thin space between pleasure and pain. Better: Willy texting him to come over on his day off, eating breakfast in a plush robe that was softer than anything he’d ever owned in his life in the conservatory, cuddled up against Willy as Kyle sat across from them, sipping his coffee and scowling down at the paper. Worse: the press of Willy’s feet against his as Willy tucked his head under Mitch’s chin with a satisfied sigh, his arm going around Mitch to hold him close, the small, fond smile that immediately pushed aside Kyle’s frown when he glanced up at them. Sweet: the way that Willy ran his fingers up and down Mitch’s arm as he lay in Kyle and Willy’s bed and tried not to fall asleep. Bitter: watching Kyle press a gentle kiss to Willy’s mouth when he whined at him for getting out of the bed, the way that Willy’s eyes would flutter shut as his lips curled up into a smile that seemed to make his entire being glow. 

Auston thought he should tell them, and when Mitch vehemently rejected even the thought, said that he should, at the very least, stop working for them. Quit again, use his schoolwork as an excuse, give himself the time and space to get over them. _If you're under them, you aren’t getting' over them_, Auston had said. _Did you just quote Dua Lipa at me?_ Mitch had asked, and Auston had blushed, muttering something about Freddie loving her under his breath. That at least had distracted him enough that it stopped that conversation, though Mitch had no doubt that he would work his way back around to it eventually. Mitch hadn’t stopped thinking about it since though, turning the thought over and over in his head until it was as well worn as a stone plucked from the bottom of a river. He knew Auston was right, was the real issue – it wasn’t getting better, being around Willy and Kyle more and more, fucking but also just hanging out, spending time with them, watching as both of them opened up more and more towards each other. Kyle had actually taken a full day off the other weekend to spend the whole day with Willy and Mitch and it broke his heart wide open just as much as it filled it up with the sort of warmth that he’d come to dread feeling around them. It wasn’t getting better, wasn’t going away, was just getting stronger, and there was only so much of himself that Mitch could shove down and ignore before it would begin needling up through his skin, turning him sharp and rotting. He kept putting it off though, kept ignoring it as much as possible, clinging greedily to the stolen moments that he was able to snatch with Kyle and Willy, the good parts of it, the parts of it he could hold close and savour. 

So, he avoided making a decision, avoided discussing the possibility with Auston, avoided even acknowledging the eventuality head on. Tried to ignore the clench of his gut whenever he was reminded that he was an interloper in a marriage that was just getting stronger and stronger, rebuilding from the ground up with Mitch pouring himself into the cracks in an attempt to belong, in an attempt to help. He wasn’t going to say anything so long as there was still something good he could draw out of it, some part of it that made him smile, that made him feel full of a quiet sort of happiness. He wasn’t going to say anything. He wasn’t, he wasn’t, he wasn’t, and then he did. 

They were all lying in bed, which was probably the worst place to have this conversation, the worst possible circumstances. Mitch was naked, lying facing Willy and Kyle, who were both looking back at him. They’d cleaned up but climbed back under the blankets after, savouring the quiet glow of lingering pleasure. Mitch had been thinking that it was time for him to head home, mind ticking over all the schoolwork that was waiting for him in his apartment, but had been having trouble convincing himself to leave the warm spot he’d claimed under the blanket, the soft movement of Willy’s hand playing with his fingers where their hands were suspended against the stretch of blank white fabric between the two of them, tethering him to Kyle and Willy even as they laid apart; a clear division between willyandkyle and Mitch, alone. When the anxiety over how much work he had to do finally grew into something that he could feel rolling in his stomach, he opened his mouth to let them know that he needed to leave.

“I don’t think I can keep doing this,” was what came out instead, and Mitch’s eyes widened in surprise even as Willy’s narrowed in confusion, Kyle propping himself up so that he could see Mitch better over his husband’s shoulder. 

“Doing what?” Willy asked. Mitch thought about lying, about trying to figure out something else that that statement could have been about, but he was heartsore and he was afraid and he was exhausted with both of those feelings. He might as well follow the painful path his tongue had opened up for him. 

“This,” Mitch said, pulling his hand out of Willy’s to gesture between the three of them. “I can’t–” his voice broke, embarrassingly, and he cleared his throat. “I can’t keep being here, with the two of you.” Willy’s eyes were widening as he slowly began to understand what Mitch was getting at. Mitch glanced at Kyle, but his face was back to the impassive mask that he hadn’t seen in months, and he didn’t realize until that moment how much it would hurt to see it again, to see it directed at him. 

“Mitch,” Willy started, but Mitch shook his head. 

“No, I can’t, I can’t,” he stumbled over his words, trying to figure out how to tell them that he had to go without wrenching his heart out in the process, handing it over to them bloody and bruised. He glanced back at Kyle again, the lack of expression on the other man’s face so much easier to speak to than the open hurt beginning to flow over Willy’s. “I can’t keep coming over here, I can’t keep sleeping with you, I can’t keep watching you be in love while I’m… I’m just something you do occasionally.” 

“Mitch,” Willy said quickly, desperately. “That’s not, you’re not just… you’re so much more than that.” Mitch shook his head. 

“I’m not saying that,” he said. “I know… I know you… care, about me,” he swallowed against that particular truth, the truth that made this entire thing so much more painful. “I’m just saying that… that I care _more_, and I can’t keep coming over when I feel this way.” He looked away from Willy, back at Kyle, mentally pleading with the older man to understand what he meant, what he was saying, to not force him to actually say the words out loud. Kyle’s expression had gotten impossibly blanker, but when Mitch looked at him, he nodded. 

“I understand,” he said, and Willy shot his husband an incredulous look over his shoulder before looking back at Mitch. 

“I don’t,” he said, and Mitch finally sat up, unable to keep having this conversation laying in their bed like it was somewhere he could stay, somewhere he belonged. He climbed out from between the covers, and Willy and Kyle sat up as well, Willy looking after him with large eyes, silently pleading. 

“I’m sorry Willy, Kyle,” Mitch said. “I’m sorry, I just–” he trailed off, bending over to start picking up his clothes, pulling on his boxers, his jeans, as fast as he was able, suddenly feeling more naked than he’d ever been before. 

“Please don’t do this,” Willy said, and it was his turn for his voice to break. Mitch grabbed the rest of his clothing, not bothering to put them on as he stood there, trembling. He needed to leave, needed to get out _now_ because if Willy started crying he would climb right back into that bed and never leave and as much as it hurt he knew that that slow death would be so much worse than the sharp tear he was feeling in that moment. 

“I have to,” he said, voice desperate, begging Willy to understand, to stop asking him for what he couldn’t give. He glanced at Kyle, who nodded. 

“Willy,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically soft, and his husband turned to face him. 

“Tell him,” he begged. 

“Willy, he wants to go,” Kyle said, and Willy’s face crumpled. Mitch turned then, all but ran from the room, ignored the way that Willy yelled after him. He paused in the front hall, dug his keys from his pocket and dropped them on a table where they’d be clearly visible when Willy or Kyle came into the room. A message, loud and obvious, and then he kept running, ran right into his car, headless of the way the gravel of the drive pressed into the bare soles of his feet. He tossed his clothing into the passenger seat, not bothering to put any more of it on before he climbed into the driver's seat, starting the ignition. His brain was a mess of white noise and endless echoing repetitions of Willy’s pleas, Kyle’s quiet agreement, and all he could think about was getting out of there, getting away before the tug of his heart towards them could bring him back inside and towards the inevitable shattering of his entire being. _This is for the best,_ he repeated to himself over and over again, a desperate attempt to convince his heart of what he knew in his head was true. _This is for the best_, he repeated as he drove through the gate, refusing to look in the rearview mirror and watch as the house sank out of view behind him, keeping his eyes fixed on the road ahead of him instead. 

He wondered when he’d begin to believe it.

If he ever would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi yes i'm alive!! sorry this took so long, but I hope the length makes up for the delay lmao. i successfully did nano for the first time ever (!!) and finished the whole thing so the rest will be posted shortly, as soon as it's done being edited :))


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> helen is a hero of the people, truly

It was strange. 

For all he prided himself on his powers of observation, his keen attention to detail, somehow Kyle had utterly failed to notice when he’d begun to stray from the path he’d set out for himself. By the time he’d noticed it had almost been too late, had almost cost him everything. Just how far he’d wandered too was only obvious now that he had begun to try and find his way back onto it, to try and stumble free of the bleak and empty forest that he hadn’t ever seen closing around him. It was a struggle, and not one of the many he’d ever predicted for himself.

Sometime between his father throwing a heavy marble statue at him, splitting his head open and making his mother scream with the way blood ran down his face, and him standing in the rain in front of the chapel after the funeral service, Kyle had made himself a promise. He would never let his father, his expectations, his bigotry, his empty, hollow heart rule his life. Kyle was his own person, cracked but whole, and there was more than enough in him to prove his father wrong, to prove them all wrong. His father had given him life and stolen his blood and his childhood and, for so long, his ability to love. As his body slowly began to rot away beneath the ground, Kyle made himself a new promise: that he would steal it all back and more, take his father’s name, his reputation, his home, and build something more than his father could have ever conceived of in his narrow and hateful mind. He’d thrown himself into his work, into the world of expensive champagne and even more expensive escorts and weeks where he spent more time sleeping at his office than in his own bed. Meeting William had been a grace he hadn’t expected, hadn’t fully recognized at the time. He was beautiful – still was beautiful – a strange, fey man with a laugh that made everyone turn to look at him. He was loud, unabashed, free, and Kyle coveted him from the moment he saw him. Paying for his tuition, his apartment, his life was easy; letting him into his house, into his bed, into his memories was far more painful than Kyle would have imagined it to ever be. It felt like tearing himself open, learning how to make space for William in his head and heart and home, but when he woke up in the morning to William lying next to him, when he came home, no matter how late, to find William waiting for him with a smile, it made it all worth it. 

He didn’t know when he’d lost sight of that. How he could have ever forgotten it.

Cutting back his hours was far easier than he would have liked, casting a glaring light on the fact that the option had always been there, that the bulk of the weight on him came from his own expectations rather than that of those around him. There were, it turned out, plenty below him who were happy to be delegated to, who rose to the occasion with the kind of aplomb that saw him mentally preparing himself to hand out a lot of bonuses at the end of the year. But while the logistics were easy, his own reactions were not. It was part of the emergence from that dark and tangled place that he’d allowed himself to get lost in for so long, he supposed. The open air and sunlight felt strange after so long in the close darkness; lazy mornings with William, late evenings spent at the piano, taking his husband ice skating just to watch his cheeks flush bright red in the cold, his laughter echoing through the snow-filled air. It was akin to the painful prick of a long asleep limb coming awake, something where he could see how much better it would be on the other side even as he struggled through the sensations taking hold of him in the moment. And then there was Mitch. His happiness just as inescapable, as inexplicable as William’s had been in the beginning. He confused Kyle in a way that he couldn’t quite decide if he liked or not, as different from William as he was similar, their brightness reflecting off of each other, amplifying until Kyle felt blinded by it. There were still things about Mitch that were uncomplicated of course: how much Kyle enjoyed the sight of him and William pressed together, the feeling of Mitch’s body moving against his, the way he kissed and how he looked in the early morning light, him and Willian both wrapped so closely around each other that there wasn’t even room for air between them, the way he could shock a smile onto Kyle’s lips, how deeply he cared, how enthusiastically he lived. He also knew that when Mitch left, it felt a bit like he was being drawn back into that forest all over again.

* * *

The kitchen had always been one of Kyle’s favourite parts of the house, for all that he didn’t actually do any of his own cooking. Its huge windows looked over the wooded part of the estate, and no matter what time of day it was, it always seemed to be filled with sunlight. The old wooden table was one of the few things he hadn’t replaced when he’d reworked the house into something new, something for him and William. The large black gas stove was new however, as was the deep farmhouse sink, the matched set of fridges, the copper pots hanging above it all. He’d often escaped here as a child, dodging the watchful eye of his nanny, the judgemental glare of his father, hiding in the warmth and smell of bread, savouring the small cup of tea with honey that the cook would always make for him whenever he managed to steal his way into the room. He figured that predictability was probably why his nanny never seemed quite as panicked as she should have been when she finally tracked him down. His father, luckily, never cared enough to notice this pattern, so Kyle spent many stolen childhood hours there, in the hidden heart of the house. Sometimes, he thought that the time he’d spent in that room was the only time he’d ever been happy as a child. It seemed fitting, then, and in many other ways besides, that he would be having this conversation with William in this room, their feet pressed together under the table as they both blew on their tea to cool it. It was the weekend, the staff all given the day off, and so it was just the two of them, in their own little bubble of warmth, a feeling that Kyle had been getting more and more used to. He wondered how he’d ever given it up in the first place. 

“I wasn’t happy,” he said, and William looked up. “I think you know that already, but I want to say it. Before, how we were living, how much I was working, how I would treat you… I was miserable.” William nodded, looking at him with cautious eyes. It sent a pang through Kyle’s heart, though he knew William wasn’t wrong to be wary, that as far as they’d come there was still so much further to go before they could return to how they were before. “I know you were too,” Kyle said. “I’m not saying this to excuse how I was treating you. I just… I just want you to know how happy I’ve been the last couple of months. I don’t think I fully understood just how bad things were until they began to change.” William nodded slowly. 

“You know how unhappy I was,” he said, before his mouth ticked up slightly into a small smile. “I’m not anymore though,” he said. “It’s been… hard, but so much better.” Kyle nodded. 

“You know that I swore, when my father died, that I would live my life in defiance of him, become everything he’d told me I couldn’t.” William nodded, and Kyle looked down at his mug. “It’s stupid. I spent so long trying not to let him control me, not to let him make choices for me. And then I went and structured my whole life around what would piss him off the most.” When he looked back up at William, it was to see his husband smiling back at him. 

“It’s not stupid,” he said. “You were just trying to be your own person, trying to prove him wrong for everything he ever called you, everything he said you couldn’t be.” Kyle shook his head. 

“I sacrificed so much for a ghost,” he said. “Nothing but the memory of a petty, bitter, old man, and I almost burnt down everything around me, almost lost you, just trying to prove him wrong about me. I was so scared, just terrified for no reason, that if I admitted I wasn’t happy I would be losing, that it would mean he was right about me.” 

“You prove him wrong every day,” William said seriously, reaching out and laying his hand on Kyle’s wrist. “You prove him wrong by being yourself, by loving me, by being more successful than he ever was.” 

“I do,” Kyle said. “I love you.” William smiled, bright and clear; an expression that had become so painfully unfamiliar, so rare, that seeing it, even now, months after it first began to reemerge, made his heart stutter in his chest. 

“I love you too,” William said. “And you deserve happiness.” 

“You do too,” Kyle said, making his voice as serious as he was able. “And I’m going to spend the rest of our lives making sure that you are, as much as is possible and as much as you want to be and every minute that I can.” William’s face softened, and he leaned over the table to press a soft kiss to Kyle’s lips, Kyle kissing back just as gently, just as carefully. When William sat back, it was with a small smile still lingering on his lips even as he picked up his tea and took a careful sip. When he glanced up and saw that Kyle was still watching him, he smiled again, a blush pinking the rounds of his cheeks. 

“What?” he finally asked, when Kyle didn’t say anything, just kept looking at him. He was so in love with this man that he felt overwhelmed with it, the emotion so all-encompassing that even what he’d already said failed to capture it.

“Do you still want kids?” he asked, impulsive, and William’s eyes went wide. He set down his mug, painfully careful, and Kyle’s heart twisted in his chest. The caution in his husband’s eyes as he tried to decide what to say hurt, but Kyle couldn’t pretend it wasn’t deserved. 

“I had…” William started, then paused, clearing his throat to start again, looking down at the table instead of at Kyle. “I had assumed that it was off the table, at this point.” Kyle chewed over his own words for a long moment before he spoke again.

“I always wanted kids,” he said slowly. “I know you wanted them too, we talked about it before we got married.” William nodded, and he continued. “I’m just… I was afraid, I am afraid, especially now.” 

“Of what?” William asked, meeting his eyes, expression open and curious.

“That I’ll turn into my father,” Kyle admitted. “That I won’t be able to give my – our – children anything but the same as what I was raised with.” William’s face crumpled as he spoke, into a sadness that Kyle wasn’t sure he deserved. 

“You won’t,” William said. “I know you won’t. You’re a far better man than he ever was. You have a… a capacity for love and kindness and happiness that that miserable old man never did. I know you’re struggling right now with how you lost yourself, how you almost lost me, but never doubt that. You are a thousand times the man he was.” Kyle swallowed, nodded, blinking quickly, unsure how to react to the certainty in his husband’s voice, the faith he still had in Kyle, even after everything, even after showing William the worst of himself, the cruelty he was capable of if he set his mind to it. 

“Have I mentioned recently that I love you?” he said instead, watched as a slow smile spread across William’s face. 

“Maybe,” he said, picking up his mug so that he could look at Kyle over the top of it. “Wouldn’t mind hearing it again though.” Kyle smiled, and said it again, and again.

Something about that conversation in the kitchen felt like a turning point, a marker on the road back to who Kyle used to be. More than any conversation they’d had before – amongst all the arguments and long, tense silences – that day in the kitchen made Kyle feel certain that everything would work out, that the bits and chunks that he and William had torn from each other’s hearts were not beyond healing, that whatever scars were left would be just that: reminders of something that they worked through, no longer open wounds that would continue to bleed. It was in the way William smiled at him when he impulsively stopped on the way home to pick up flowers for him, in William sneaking out of bed early in the morning only to return an hour later with a pot of hot coffee and a plate of warm croissants. The little, sweet things that he’d forgotten about who they had been, that were now returning to shape who they were, who they would be. Even when he found himself falling into old patterns, a sharp word here, a night spent far too late at the office there, even when William too, in his way, reverted to old habits, to avoiding Kyle and not saying what he was actually thinking… they were still improving, beginning to find ways to pull each other back that didn’t involve half the drama of some of their previous, quite frankly embarrassing, confrontations. Among other things, it was nice to no longer have to spend any time avoiding judgemental looks from the staff. 

In the end all of that growth, all of that healing and progress, just made it all the more alarming when William, curled up against him in front of the fireplace and playing on his phone while Kyle read, suddenly started to cry. 

Kyle didn’t notice at first, too caught up in the world that the words rushing by on the page in front of him had conjured, sweeping him away into a world of ice and snow and a horrible, gristly murder. He had a bad habit of becoming far too preoccupied when reading, in a way that rather completely obscured the real world around him, something he’d rediscovered along with his love of mysteries. Even when he finally noticed the way that William was shaking, he thought it might be with stifled laughter, that something on his phone was making him shake silently in an attempt not to disturb Kyle. When he finally let out a small, bitten off noise of hurt however, Kyle finally realized what was happening, dropping his book to the cushion next to him and turning, going to his knees on the floor so that he could look up at William. He reached up, taking gentle hold of his husband’s wrists, pulling them down and revealing his eyes, red and wet. William blinked at him, still shaking but now unable to hide the fact that he was crying, small hiccuping sobs breaking their way from his mouth over and over again. Kyle glanced down at William’s hands as he pulled them down the rest of the way, to rest on William’s knees, and noted that William’s phone was still grasped loosely in one hand, a photo he vaguely remembered from their vacation earlier that year filling the screen. Looking back up at his husband, at the miserable expression on his face, Kyle felt suddenly utterly helpless, a familiar feeling at that point but no less unwelcome for it. 

“William,” he said, keeping his voice pitched low and soft. “Baby, what’s wrong?” William shook his head, not saying anything though he was beginning to cry harder, arms tugging weakly against Kyle’s grip; wanting to cover his face, wanting to hide away. “I can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s wrong, baby, please.” William let out a proper sob, finally giving up on getting loose from Kyle’s grip and just dropping his head onto his lap, folding into himself. Kyle was startled enough that he released William’s arms, and William immediately wrapped them around his own legs, pulling himself into as small a shape as was possible with him still sitting on the couch. 

“I’ve ruined everything,” William said, voice muffled against the fabric of his pants, distorted by the heavy, pained breaths stuttering rapidfire through his lungs. Kyle felt the bottom drop out of his stomach, still no closer to understanding what was happening but nonetheless taken over by a nameless dread. They were too early into their attempt to heal their relationship for him to feel anything but fear that the not-yet-finished foundations they’d laid might be all too quickly undone, that William might have decided that it wasn’t worth fixing after all. 

“You haven’t,” Kyle said, trying not to let his own panic and desperation leak into his voice, trying to keep up the same calm, stoic exterior that he so expertly wielded elsewhere. “You couldn’t.” William shook his head, face still pressed to his knees. 

“I have,” he said. “I can’t stop–” he broke off, crying harder. 

“Baby please,” Kyle said. “Please talk to me.” He reached up, ran a comforting hand over William’s back, over and over again as his husband shook with the force of his tears. It felt like days, years, before William’s sobs finally began to quiet and slow, and when he finally raised his head, Kyle couldn’t help the sigh of relief he let out. He moved his hand from William’s back, brought his other up to cup his face with both hands, thumbs rubbing away the tear tracks streaking his face. “Hey,” he said, as gently as he could manage. William’s expression seemed to tremble, and for a second Kyle was certain he was about to set his husband off all over again, before it firmed up. He could almost see William pulling himself together, bracing himself to speak to Kyle, and if he hadn’t been so terrified Kyle might have smiled. His brave, strong husband. He moved, and Kyle moved himself backwards and to the side to give him the space to slide off the couch so that he could kneel on the floor as well, both of them on the same level. Kyle reached out, took one of William’s hands, and felt a wave of relief when William took it, gripped him tightly. His expression was unreadable in the unsteady light afforded by the fireplace, only half his face now lit with that warm yellow glow, the other half almost entirely in shadow.

“You’ve done– _we’ve_ done so much work, putting ourselves back together,” William finally started, voice raspy and worn from crying. Kyle nodded, unsure and afraid of where William was leading them. “And it’s been so good, so much better than I thought it could be, and I was– I wanted, so badly, for it to be fixed, for it to be all the way better–” William broke off, taking a deep, shaky breath as Kyle felt fear run through him, a wave of freezing heat that he refused to let show on his face. 

“William,” he said, voice soft, but William shook his head. 

“No, let me, I can, I can say this.” He paused, took a deep breath. “I want it to be enough. You were enough before, and it’s just, it’s greedy and stupid and selfish–” he broke off again, a sharp, stuttering inhale. Kyle tried not to guess, tried not to follow the logic of William’s words, to speculate on their meaning, because if they weren’t what he was beginning to think… well, it would be all the more painful for the loss of it.

“You can tell me anything William,” he said. “I love you, no matter what.” William nodded, face twisting in a small sob. 

“I know,” he said, voice thick. “I know. I love you too, always.” Kyle nodded, feeling at least a little of the tension finally leach from his bones. Kyle watched as William tilted his head back, blinking the tears from his eyes though one still managed to slip free, reflecting the firelight as it drew a slow, quiet path down the curve of William’s cheek until it disappeared beneath his jaw. “That’s what makes it so awful,” he said, looking back at Kyle. “Makes me so awful.” He cleared his throat, visibly bracing himself. “I love you,” he repeated, “but I can’t stop thinking about him.” Kyle’s heart stopped, started, and then stopped again. Finally, he swallowed, and when it became clear that William didn’t intend to continue, forced himself to ask the question, no matter how much he feared the response, no matter how it might change things between the two of them, forever. 

“Who?” he asked, and watched as fresh tears began to carve their path down William’s face. 

“Mitch,” he said. 

It was like a glass of cold water being poured over his head– or no, not quite, more like sticking your head under a cold tap on a burning hot summer day. Cold, shocking, but a relief too, something that after the initial rush of adrenaline turned soothing and grounding. Kyle took a long, slow breath. William was still crying, eyes shut against whatever reaction he feared from Kyle, his grip on Kyle’s hand still tight enough that Kyle could feel it against his bones. Kyle tugged against his hand, frowning when William almost flinched at the movement, though he still didn’t let go or open his eyes. 

“William,” Kyle said, voice as soft as he could make it. “Baby, please, look at me.” He waited, feeling oddly calm, like this was a conversation they’d had before but he just didn’t quite remember, something that he knew the outcome of, not the words they’d speak but the conclusion they’d reach. He hadn’t thought about it before, but he also hadn’t _not_ thought about it before, an idea, an impulse that he’d shoved beneath the surface of his mind because there was enough between him and William already, and this didn’t need to be yet another thing for them to negotiate and navigate. Except for, of course, how it apparently was. How William was apparently not as willing as Kyle to ignore his feelings, to shove them down and pretend they didn’t exist – not a surprise, he supposed as he watched William finally open his eyes, eyelashes heavy and wet with tears, the tracks they’d left down his face clearly visible in the firelight glancing off of them. 

“I’m sorry,” William said, voice small and miserable. Kyle was shaking his head before William even finished speaking. 

“I’m not,” he said. “You shouldn’t be.” William blinked at him, forehead creasing slightly. 

“You’re not upset?” he asked. Kyle shook his head, and William nodded sharply, face turning resolute. 

“I can… I’ll stop,” he said. “I will, I’ll get over it, and I’ll stop, and I wont– you don’t have to worry about me–”

“I’m not worried,” Kyle interrupted before William reopened any still-healing wounds. “And you don’t have to stop.” William frowned. 

“I don’t… what?” he asked, and Kyle inhaled, taking a moment to organize his thoughts. 

“I’m more than happy like this, with you. We could be together, just you and me, until we’re both ancient and grey–”

“I’m not going grey,” William muttered around a sniff, and Kyle tried not to smile as he continued.  
“–and that would be more than enough for me. I love you.” Kyle met William’s eyes, waited until he nodded, until Kyle was certain that he’d heard what he was saying, knew that he meant it. “But,” he continued, taking a deep breath, “if you want more, if you want Mitch, in our bed and in our home and in our lives… we can do that too.” William’s eyes widened, mouth dropping open in surprise as he stared at his husband. Kyle gave him a moment, raising his empty hand to take hold of William’s other one so they were connected completely, on their knees facing each other in front of the fire. There was nothing between them but shadows and light and the bare, ragged truth, and Kyle felt freer than he had in years, maybe ever. 

“Are you– what are you saying?” William finally asked. 

“You said you can’t stop thinking about Mitch,” Kyle said. William nodded, tentative. “I haven’t stopped thinking about him either,” Kyle admitted. 

“Not just in a sex way,” William said, more statement than question, like he was too afraid of the answer to actually ask it. Kyle shook his head.

“No,” he said. 

“Do you… are you in love with him? Too?” Kyle looked over William’s shoulder, taking a long moment to think over the question, to visit the quiet, dark corners of his heart.

“No,” he said finally. “But I like him, a lot.” He looked over at William, at the fear still tugging at the edges of his expression, the shattered pieces of his husband’s heart on full display. “You love him,” he said, and it wasn’t a question but William answered it anyway. 

“Yeah,” he said. He didn’t start crying again, but Kyle could tell it was a near thing. 

“Okay,” Kyle said. 

“Okay?” William asked, voice ticking up slightly at the end and Kyle hastened to cut that off before it could get going. 

“It’ll be okay,” he said. “This is good, right? That we’ve talked about it?” William nodded, slowly. “That we’re being honest with each other?” Kyle said, and William nodded again, stronger this time. “So whatever we do from here, wherever we go, _we_ will be okay,” Kyle shook William’s hands slightly as he spoke, looking into his eyes and willing his husband to believe him, to understand how serious he was. 

“What do we do?” William finally asked, voice small. 

“Well, I think asking Mitch out on a date would be a good first step,” Kyle said, eyes slipping off his husband’s face and towards the rug as he began planning. “A bit unconventional and out of order of course, but–”

“What?” William interrupted. “No! We can’t ask him on a date.” Kyle looked back at him, feeling himself begin to frown. 

“Whyever not?” he asked, and William stared at him for a long moment before he finally tugged his hands free from Kyle’s grip. Kyle was saved from any panic by the fact that William didn’t move more than that, just raised his hands in front of him as he began to talk.

“One,” William said, tapping his two pointer fingers together, “he already left, and said rather definitively that he doesn’t want to be around us anymore. Two,” pointer finger to middle finger, “we,” gesturing back and forth between him, “are already married, and only barely beginning to work through years of fucked up shit that we should, quite frankly, probably be seeing a therapist for.” William was gaining speed now, voice rising and quickening as he reached his third point, pointer finger against ring finger. “Three,” he said, “we like, definitely abused our position as his employers, and I doubt he’s moving past that anytime soon, and all his friends probably hate us too. Four–”

“William,” Kyle interrupted before his husband could talk himself out of even the possibility of what Kyle was proposing. “We both want him. You love him. If we can get him back, we should.” William shook his head, so Kyle continued. “Do you want him? Love him?” he asked, and William’s voice broke when he replied:

“Please don’t do this,” he said, but Kyle needed him to say it again, say it in a way that neither of them would be able to obfuscate or deny.

“Do you?” he asked again, and William stared at him for a long moment before almost visibly deflating. 

“I do,” he said. “I want him, I love him. Happy?” The last word was snapped out, but that didn’t stop Kyle from smiling back at him. 

“Yes,” he said, smiling even wider when William made a face at him. “I want him too,” he continued, voice serious, and William’s expression followed suit. “And I have never, not once in my entire life, let anything I wanted go.” He reached out, taking William’s left hand and rubbing his thumb over his wedding ring. “It’s how I got you,” he said, and William smiled at him, soft and fond and so sweet that it made Kyle feel like he couldn’t get a full breath into his lungs. “If you want him,” he said. “I’ll get him.” William looked at him for a long moment, eyes wide, until finally something shifted in their depths, in that same part of William that made him the perfect counterpoint to Kyle, that made him just as deadly, just as calculated, whenever he decided to play the role of picture perfect trophy husband. 

“I want him,” William said, and the two men smiled at each other, still on aching knees in front of the fire, as something dark and powerful danced between them.

* * *

It was shockingly easy to get Mitch’s schedule from his roommate, and Kyle made a mental note to talk to Mitch about safety and privacy as he directed the driver towards the building the young man had pointed to on the map of campus that he’d tugged off the corkboard in the entryway to Mitch’s apartment. He hadn’t invited Kyle inside but what Kyle saw of the place made him also make a note to ask Mitch if he’d like to move in with them. _Well,_ he thought, backtracking, _that might be a bit forward_. Maybe he would just offer Mitch the downtown condo – he’d barely used it in the last few months, aside from a couple of occasions when him and William stayed out too late and drank too much and decided to stay the night downtown rather than make the trek home. It would be good to have someone in there, even if Mitch did bring his dog along with him. Mitch could stay down there during the week – which would be easier for him getting to and from school anyways – and then maybe he could come up to the house for the weekend. William would be thrilled for the excuse to go downtown for dinner more often too, and Kyle felt something heat in his stomach at the memory of how wide-eyed and nervous William had been when Kyle had first started treating him to expensive things, what it would be like to get to do that all over again with Mitch. How he might react to dinner at Blueblood or Canoe, to shopping in Yorkville, to a weekend trip to New York. 

His attention was drawn back to his surroundings at the slowing of the vehicle, the driver having finally located the building that Mitch’s roommate had assured Kyle he would be leaving in – Kyle glanced down at his watch – ten minutes. _Perfect_, he thought, instructing the driver to wait while he climbed out of the car. He brushed his hands down his carefully selected suit, trying not to feel too ridiculous. Given the near-fight that he and William had gotten into when figuring out what he should wear, he wasn’t sure there was any saving his dignity at this point, but he could at least manage to maintain it outwardly. The suit he’d finally settled on – dark charcoal grey with a heathered grey vest and white shirt – was, of course, impeccably tailored, and absolutely not boring, no matter what William implied to the contrary. He’d compromised by including a floral pocket square, a shock of colour that he didn’t usually indulge in but which William assured him would provide the perfect contrast to the severe lines of his suit. While his husband’s fashion sense was often… questionable, as he glanced at himself quickly in the black reflective surface of the car’s window, Kyle had to admit that he had probably been right in this at least. The long black wool coat unbuttoned overtop was the perfect final touch, besides being the only thing, other than the leather gloves covering his hands, sparing him the indignity of shivering in the chill late winter air. Adjusting his cuffs, Kyle turned, leaning against the car and checking his watch again. _Five minutes_. He tried not to think about the road dirt and salt that was most likely rubbing off on the back of his coat. After all, this was just as much a performance as any he put on for stockholders and investors, a perfectly calculated tableau, a seduction and offer both, and one which he did not intend to be refused. Pulling a cigar from his pocket, he lit it, just as much a part of the performance as the faux-casual lean, though this one at least had the added benefit of giving him the soothing experience of walking through a familiar ritual, the rush of tobacco a balm on the nervousness that he would categorically deny feeling. There was no reason for Mitch to turn him, to turn William, down. He had meant what he’d told his husband. He intended to get Mitch, and there was very little in his life that he had ever set his mind to and failed to acquire. Mitch might be different, not quite in the same way as William though it was similar enough that Kyle couldn’t help but draw parallels between this and his courtship of his husband, but that didn’t mean that Kyle intended to do anything differently in this particular type of seduction than he usually would. This was what he did, where he excelled, and as he blew out a cloud of smoke, he allowed that confidence to fill him, to leech into the casual lean of his body, the tilt of his hips, the half-lidded gaze that he kept trained on the door to the building. If his roommate’s assurances about the predictability of Mitch’s habits were anything close to accurate, he would be emerging from those doors any moment. One hand shoved in his trouser’s pocket, he smoked his cigar and waited.

He had had the brief worry that Mitch might not spot him when he left the building, that Kyle might have to suffer the indignity of yelling after him, maybe even chasing after him. He needn't have bothered however; the second Mitch stepped out of the building, even with distractions offered by the loud and boisterous crowd of his peers surrounding him, his eyes immediately found Kyle. His eyes went wide with surprise, and as Kyle took another drag of his cigar he could almost see him debate his options. Kyle figured it was even odds that he would just run, and was relieved to see him firm his shoulders instead, setting off across the distance between the building and where Kyle was standing. He was vaguely aware of the fact that they had an audience, Mitch’s friends, classmates, whoever, stopping and staring after Mitch, but he ignored them in favour of focusing on Mitch as he drew nearer. His face was set in a mask of anger, not very surprising, all things considered, but still an expression that Kyle would really rather he not be wearing. 

“Kyle,” Mitch said, the anger in his voice echoing the expression creasing his face. “What are you _doing_?” 

“Hello Mitch,” Kyle said, keeping his voice and expression neutral. “How was class?” Mitch stared at him for a long moment, and Kyle didn’t wait for him to recover from Kyle’s impertinence before he continued. “I was hoping to speak with you.” Mitch shook his head, expression shifting from anger to something more complicated. 

“I wasn’t,” he said. “Kyle, seriously, you can’t do this. I told you, I told _both_ of you–”

“That you couldn’t continue fucking us,” Kyle finished, watching as Mitch flinched slightly at the corseness of Kyle’s word choice. “Yes, we understood. That’s not why I’m here,” he said. Mitch frowned, confused. 

“Then why are you here?” He asked, and Kyle dropped his cigar on the ground, straightening out of his lean and reaching up to draw cold leather tinged with the smell of smoke down the soft curve of Mitch’s cheek. Mitch shivered at the contact, and Kyle couldn’t help the small smile that curved his lips at the motion, the clear signal that Mitch had not yet forgotten them, had not moved on from. 

“I’m here for you,” he said, and when Mitch opened his mouth to argue again just kept going, raising his voice slightly so that Mitch couldn’t speak over him. “I’m here to take you home.” Mitch’s expression broke open at that, and he reached up, knocking Kyle’s hand away.

_”Don’t,”_ he repeated. “Don’t Kyle, this is cruel, this is–”

“William is in love with you,” Kyle said, not bothering to raise his voice over Mitch’s increasingly loud rebuff. It still stopped Mitch mid-word, his mouth hanging open as he stared at Kyle.

“What?” he breathed out, whisper-soft. 

“I’m not asking you to come back for anything as sordid as a quick fuck,” he said, stepping closer and running a hand from Mitch’s shoulder to his wrist, catching his chilled fingers between his own. “I’m asking you to come _home_ with me. To us.” 

“Willy’s in love with me?” Mitch asked, clearly still caught on that revelation. Fair enough, Kyle supposed, nodding. 

“Yes, he is,” he said. Mitch looked stunned for another long moment before his forehead abruptly creased, leaning back slightly to stare at Kyle.

“What about you?” he asked. 

“I want you to return to us as well,” Kyle answered easily, but Mitch shook his head. 

“No yeah, I got that I’m just… what about _you_. How do you feel about me?” Kyle opened his mouth to respond then paused, thinking. Mitch had been so intensely vulnerable with him and William the last time he’d seen him, to a degree that he was certain had cost the younger man dearly. He, perhaps, owed him a bit more honesty than he would normally give. Telling him that he didn’t love him would hardly be a productive point to make though, and he found himself hesitating over what _to_ say, what he could say that would be honest and true but still edge him closer to his goal. 

“I want you to come home with us,” he said finally, continuing quickly before Mitch had the chance to get more belligerent at the repetition. “I want you in our bed, in our house. I want to see your face first thing in the morning, I want to hear you laughing in our kitchen, I want to play you music, buy you pretty things and show you off.” 

“You– what?” Mitch stuttered out, eyes wide and clearly struggling to keep hope away, to keep his heart guarded from the pain he still probably thought Kyle would bestow upon him any second. Kyle tightened his grip on the younger man’s hand. 

“We want to date you,” he said, forcing every bit of conviction that he felt into his voice. “Not just sex, but a relationship.” He paused, but Mitch just continued to stare at him, apparently out of things to say. “I understand of course if you are not interested, given everything that we–”

“No!” Mitch blurted out, before flushing bright red, obvious on his winter-pale cheeks, the tan from their trip long since faded. There was a rustling sort of movement from behind Mitch, and Kyle glanced up to see that their audience hadn’t dissipated, a motley collection of graduate students continuing to stare at them. Kyle felt slightly triumphant as he turned back to Mitch – clearly the stage he’d carefully set just for Mitch was just as captivating for others. 

“No?” Kyle asked, when Mitch didn’t say anything else. Mitch seemed to be trying to look anywhere but Kyle’s face, and when he didn’t say anything Kyle let the slightest bit of impatience guide him to again raise his hand, taking hold of Mitch’s chin and forcing him to hold still, to meet Kyle’s gaze. “No?” he repeated, watching as Mitch swallowed. 

“I’m…” he started, then trailed off, clearly struggling for words. “You really mean it?” he finally settled on, voice small in a way that made Kyle’s chest ache with the weight of all of his mistakes. 

“I mean it,” he said, meeting Mitch’s gaze with clear eyes. Mitch’s eyes widened at whatever he saw in Kyle’s face.

“Really?” he breathed out, taking a small step forward so that he was standing close enough to Kyle that the hot ghost of the word slid past his face. 

“Really,” Kyle said, and leaned down to capture Mitch’s lips in a gentle kiss. Mitch beat him to it though, surging upwards and throwing his arms around Kyle’s shoulders as he immediately licked into his mouth, no finesse or easing into it. Kyle smiled against his lips even as he rested a careful hand on Mitch’s hip, drawing the other one up to bury it in Mitch’s hair as he kissed him again and again. They finally broke apart when a long piercing whistle broke the silence between them, the sounds of a multitude of voices cheering and catcalling ringing out as Mitch panted into the narrow space between them, not yet letting go of Kyle. Kyle couldn’t help but smile as he stared down at him even when Mitch once again raised his eyes to Kyle’s face. He didn’t say anything, just looked at Kyle for a long moment before finally breaking out into a wide grin, the kind of smile that made something deeply buried inside Kyle glow in response. 

“Is that a yes?” Kyle asked, and Mitch laughed.

“Yeah,” he said, voice giddy. “It is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q: hey eden wasn't this supposed to be the last chapter?
> 
> A: yes, yes it was
> 
> Q: so.... what happened?
> 
> A: ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	7. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helen stays winning

Stepping out into the hot summer air, Kyle paused for a moment, taking in the scene in front of him. It was the strangest sort of deja vu, nearly identical to the moment that he’d first realized that William and Mitch were sleeping together. Unlike then though, all he could think about now was how beautiful William and Mitch looked together, Mitch propped up above William on the lounger, their mouths moving against each other, slow and lazy, a concession to either the heat or how long they’d been out here, waiting for Kyle to finish up his call. He supposed he should just be impressed with their restraint, grateful they’d waited at all, given how long it had taken him to finally settle things at the office, soothing worries and double checking that everything was in place. You’d think he was planning on leaving forever, not just travelling to Europe for three weeks. He’d even still be reachable by phone and email, as he’d repeated approximately a thousand times to no avail. Still, he felt confident that everything would continue to run smoothly in his absence, and whatever petty things he might have to deal with while on vacation wouldn’t detract from the time he’d be spending with the two men who had now broken apart to watch his approach with hungry expressions, Mitch sitting back up on his knees while William didn’t bother to even pretend that he might raise himself up off the softly padded surface he was sprawled across.

“What took you so long?” Mitch asked as soon as Kyle was close enough that he could do it without yelling at him. Kyle raised an eyebrow.

“My apologies,” he said, voice dry. “Doesn’t look like you were suffering too much in my absence.” He looked back and forth between them but they just smiled back at him, Mitch bright and open, William smug and satisfied. He stopped just out of arm’s reach of the other two men, letting the smile that had been threatening his lips ever since he’d seen them finally slip free. “I was just getting everything settled,” he said, crossing his arms, the thin fabric of his shirt creasing with the motion. He let his gaze slide over each of them in turn, taking in lithe muscles, tanned skin, sun-lightened hair. William’s sunglasses, shoved back into his hair, Mitch’s cap, barely holding on for dear life. 

“And is it?” William asked. “All settled?” Kyle nodded, holding out a hand to him. William sighed, but acquiesced, climbing up off the lounger into the curve of Kyle’s arms, tilting his head back for the soft kiss that Kyle pressed to his lips. 

“All ready,” he confirmed aloud when William bounced back to the flats of his feet, glancing over at Mitch, still sitting, still smiling over at them, though his expression seemed to be crumbling slightly at the corners. 

“Mitch?” William asked before Kyle could. Mitch blinked, raised his hands to nervously adjust his cap, running his hand through his hair before resettling it. 

“I just…” he started, then trailed off, expression turning slightly pained. “You’re sure?” he asked. Kyle kept his mouth shut, knowing that the open exasperation that was sure to leach out wouldn’t be at all helpful. Luckily he knew his husband as well as he knew himself, and William easily filled the space left after Mitch’s words.

“Yes,” he said, voice so certain it would be impossible to disagree. “We’re sure,” he added, and Kyle nodded, watching as Mitch’s expression wavered. They wouldn’t convince him all the way, not today and maybe not any day soon, but whether it was months or years from now, eventually they would. Kyle was as sure of that as he was that this was the right choice, the best path forward for all three of them, the thing he wanted most in life. “You’ve always wanted to go to Europe,” William prodded, which Kyle thought was ridiculous. A luxurious three week vacation paid for by your much older boyfriend was something out of a tawdry romance novel, not something you needed to wheedle and coax someone into accepting. Except that it wasn’t the trip that Mitch was struggling with, wasn’t even the money, and Kyle knew that even if he didn’t know how to handle it. He again felt grateful for his husband as William walked over to Mitch, taking his hands in his own. 

“Willy…” Mitch said, but William shook his head and he fell silent.

“You don’t have to come,” William said, voice soft. “If you’re not comfortable, if this is too much, you can just say so. We won’t be upset, I promise. But if you’re worried that we won’t want you there, that we’re going to change our minds… don’t be. That won’t ever happen.” Mitch’s expression wavered, though he still looked slightly uncertain. 

“I want to,” he said, and William tugged on his hands, silencing him before he could say anything more.

“That’s the only thing that matters,” he said. “You want to, we want you to, that’s all there is to it.” Mitch swallowed, nodded. 

“I still can’t believe you already told your family about me,” he said, voice cracking slightly at the end, attempted humour running up against sheer absurdity and the knife-sharp risk of the truth. Kyle would have said he couldn’t believe it either but he’d been living with William for years, so he knew better, even if he’d almost choked on his coffee when William had wandered into the kitchen in search of a snack, chatting away on the phone to his family. He’d been speaking in Swedish, so Kyle hadn’t been really paying attention. When he switched to English mid-sentence however, Kyle’s attention snapped to him as he, casual as anything, told his parents that they’d spent the weekend at the spa with their _boyfriend_. William had shot him a look somewhere between confused and exasperated when Kyle started coughing, leaving the room before Kyle had the chance to recover and postponing the conversation until that evening when Kyle, leaning up against the bathroom door while brushing his teeth, had decided to just confront it head on and ask.

“Yeah,” William had said. “Of course I told them about Mitch.” When Kyle had just stared at him, his expression had turned defensive. _”What?”_ he’d said and Kyle had just shook his head, turning around to spit into the sink.

“I love you,” he had said when he turned back to the room. “We should go visit your family.” The look of surprise and joy that had taken over William’s face had stolen Kyle’s breath from his lungs, and now here they were, less than a day away from boarding a flight to Stockholm. William stepped closer to Mitch, reaching up to flip his cap backwards. 

“You’re worth telling people about,” he said, and Kyle had enough time to see the way Mitch’s eyes widened, the surprise that stole over his face, before it was obscured by William’s hair as his husband leaned in for a kiss. The sun was hot against his back, sending sweat sliding down the long bend of his spine. The glare of it bouncing off the tiles, the water, too bright even for the protection offered by his own sunglasses. It was worth the minor discomfort though, to watch the way that Mitch’s hand pressed into the small of William’s back, possessive, his other hand sliding slowly up William’s back before burying itself in his hair. William’s own arms were wrapped around Mitch’s waist, holding the other man close to himself as he kissed him, syrup slow, sweet and hot. It had taken a while, for the hot spark of jealousy to completely fade away when he saw them together, to be replaced wholly by a very different sort of heat, but it had happened eventually. The days passing, blending into each other and yet each unique, a weight added to the scales, tipping closer and closer to the verdict that he now felt in every part of him; that the love that wound him and William together was not at all threatened by them inviting in another. William was unabashed in his love for Mitch, the same way he always had been in his love for Kyle, the words slipping from his lips with an ease that was as alien to Kyle as the stories Mitch laughingly told about his friends, his studies. Kyle had always had a harder time saying those sorts of words – sitting heavy and coarse on his tongue, working his mouth around them all but impossible. It had taken a long time before he had learned, and then relearned, how to say it to William. He hadn’t said it to Mitch but he thought that maybe, maybe…

“Not that I’m not enjoying this,” he said, causing the other men to slowly, reluctantly pull apart, turning towards him. “But maybe we could take it inside?” 

“What’s wrong with out here?” William asked, faux-innocent. Kyle looked at him for a long minute until Mitch finally nudged his side. 

“C’mon, you know it’s hard for Kyle to spend too long outside,” he said. “He’s probably already burning.” Kyle rolled his eyes, turning to head back inside, William’s laugh following after him. He heard William say something back to Mitch, quiet enough that he didn't catch it, but it sent Mitch’s laughter chasing after William’s, twisting through the air until it faded into nothing. The soft padding of their feet behind him was audible though, and he smiled to himself as he stepped back into the shade of the house. He pulled the door open but waited, cool air pouring out over him, as the other two men slowly walked towards him, their matching smiles letting him know that the indolent pace was intentional, calculated. 

“Thanks darling,” William said as Mitch brushed past him into the house, leaning up to press a quick kiss to Kyle’s lips. He followed after Mitch, and Kyle stepped into the house, letting the door swing shut behind him as his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the interior of the building. Mitch was already halfway up the stairs, William not far behind, and Kyle smiled, the casual familiarity and irreverence that Mitch had always shown towards the house, the space that Kyle had constructed so exactingly, making something hot twist in his stomach every time. Since the start really, Mitch ignoring all the conventions that Kyle was accustomed to, all the careful rituals and strictly drawn boundaries – and somehow so endlessly charming that Kyle could never find it in himself to be truly upset about it, even when he was still pretending to be. William glanced over his shoulder at Kyle, the question in his eyes unspoken but still clear enough to kick Kyle into motion, following after his husband. The smile that William shot him as he walked towards him was warmer even than the sun, and Kyle couldn’t help but return it. 

By the time they reached the upstairs hallway, Kyle catching up with William shortly before the top of the staircase, Mitch was nowhere to be seen. They walked together down the hallway, shoulders brushing in the sweetest sort of reminder, _I’m here_ said over and over again in the gentle press of skin against skin. The open doorway to their bedroom revealed where Mitch had ended up, naked and sprawled across the centre of the bed, eyes closed and a smile curving his lips. Kyle and William paused for a moment until finally Mitch finally, reluctantly, opened his eyes, looking over at them from under heavy lashes.

“Aren’t you gonna come in?” he asked. Kyle stepped inside, pushing the door shut behind him. 

“You’re the one in our bedroom,” Kyle pointed out, immediately struck with the worry that that had been the wrong things to say, that it would make Mitch feel like he didn’t belong, like– but Mitch just smiled, closing his eyes again and tilting his head back. He settled further down in the bedding with a wiggle of his entire body and a satisfied look on his face. Movement from the corner of his eye caught his attention, and Kyle turned to see William stepping out of his shorts next to him, eyes fixed on the sprawled form of Mitch. He glanced at Kyle, raised an eyebrow at him before heading over to the bed. William launched himself onto the bed in a move that was somehow both graceful and one of the least elegant things that Kyle had ever witnessed, landing heavily, straddling Mitch’s stomach and forcing a huffed breath from his lungs. Kyle stepped closer to see that Mitch’s eyes had opened wide at the sudden feeling of William settling down atop him, his hips moving in a slow, circling grind against Mitch’s stomach. Mitch’s hands rose to take ahold of William’s hips, licking his lips as he looked up at Kyle’s husband. 

“Hey,” William said, so soft that Kyle barely caught it.

“Hi,” Mitch said back, eyes still wide, flicking between William’s face and between his legs, where his cock was slowly flushing its way to being fully hard. Kyle started to unbutton his shirt, only making it down a couple of buttons before he stopped, hands stilling. He stood and watched, instead, as William leaned down to once again capture Mitch’s lips with his own, his hands raising to gently cradle Mitch’s face. Mitch’s hands flexed on William’s hips at the first soft press of William’s lips against his own, but even that encouraging squeeze wasn’t enough to goad William into deepening the kiss. Instead he kept it light, slow, painfully teasing in a way that Kyle had been on the receiving end of more than enough. He felt a pang of sympathy for Mitch as he made an impatient noise, making William smile against his lips. The urgency that had seemed to fill both men when they were by the pool had drained completely from William, flowing entirely into Mitch, who made no effort to hide the way he squirmed under William, the impatient noises he made, whining into William’s mouth when he finally let his lips part. It was soft in a way that Kyle could tell was meant to reassure, but he wasn’t sure if Mitch, caught up in his own desire, was really cognizant of William’s intention. Though Kyle rather thought that was irrelevant, in the larger scope of things. Even if on the surface level Mitch didn’t seem to register the affection William was pouring out towards him, Kyle knew that it would resonate somewhere deep inside of him, the unconscious part of his mind soaking up the affection that his conscious mind might reject. The brain was a funny thing after all, just as odd as the heart, and just as susceptible to those things that go unspoken and are instead said through gestures and soft, whispering touches; a thumb stroking across a cheekbone, a soft pass of lips sliding from mouth to cheek and back again. 

Kyle could see the moment that the other two realized that they’d forgotten about Kyle, that he hadn’t inserted himself into the gentle caresses being traded back and forth between them. William raised his head, looking towards Kyle. Mitch blinked a couple of times, looking slightly dazed, before he did the same. The question went unspoken, but Kyle still shook his head in response. Instead of heading to the bed, he turned and headed to the high-backed armchair in the corner, easily picking it up and carrying it over until he could set it down where he had been standing. He settled there, still clothed, spreading his legs so that they could see clearly that he was hard in his slacks. William and Mitch watched the entire thing in a silence that was thick with things unspoken, tense with anticipation. Kyle gestured towards the two of them.

“Don’t stop on my account,” he said, voice far rougher than it had been the last time he’d spoken. William was the first to smile at him, wide and beautiful, Mitch following suit just a few seconds later.

“Yeah?” William asked, “You want us to put on a show for you?” Kyle nodded, letting a smile of his own slide across his face, though he knew that his was far darker, far hungrier than the clear happiness ringing on the other men’s faces. 

“Fuck,” Mitch breathed out, turning his head to look back at William. William looked at Kyle for a moment longer before turning back to the man lying under him. He pressed a quick kiss to Mitch’s lips, before sitting up, pulling open the bedside table and pulling out the nearly empty tube of lube hiding inside. Settling back into place, he smiled at Mitch as he popped open the cap, squeezing out what was almost certain to be too much lube. It would be wet and loud, and Kyle couldn’t help but swallow at the thought. He gave a brief thought to pulling out his own cock, still confined in his slacks, but decided that waiting would be far more satisfying. Besides, this way there was nothing to distract him from the sight before him, William raising his hips up to give him unobstructed access to Mitch’s cock, stroking his lube-covered hand over it until it was all but dripping, the dark curls at the base gleaming with the excess. It wasn’t until he took ahold of it and didn’t let go, moving it where he wanted, that Kyle spoke. 

“William,” he said, voice full of warning, but William shook his head, looking over at Kyle and shooting him a smile filled with promise and tinged with filth. 

“Don’t worry,” he said as he finally found the right position, pulling his hand free as he began to lower himself onto Mitch’s cock. “I’m still–” he broke off on a gasp, swallowing before he continued, voice now far breathier than it had been. “I’m still open from your cock this morning.” 

“Fuck,” Kyle said at almost the same time as Mitch. The other man was staring down at where he was slowly disappearing inside of William. Kyle’s eyes were fixed on exactly the same sight, though his angle was probably better than Mitch’s, the stretch of William’s hole as his body easily, eagerly opened up for Mitch completely on display. The thought that it was because Kyle had fucked him that morning – up against the wall in the shower, William’s desperate, gasping breaths echoing off the tiles – that Mitch was able to slide in him so easily sent arousal shivering through Kyle, making his mouth dry, his cock ache. They looked so perfect together, matching each other panting breath for panting breath, struggling to get enough air in their lungs as Mitch slid inside of William, as William took him deeper and deeper within himself. Kyle thought sometimes that he would be happy to watch nothing but this for the rest of his life. His own arousal was becoming almost unbearable, but ignoring it was its own kind of pleasure, so he kept his ache and left his hands where they were, clasped in front of him, balanced on his knees from when he’d leaned forward at some point, probably around the time when the head of Mitch’s cock had first breached William’s hole. The desire to get closer, to get a better view, was a harder one to subsume but he ignored it as well, the thought of both of them being able to look at him anytime, see him watching, see him wanting, was worth the distance. Besides, this way he could take in the entirety of them, Mitch’s legs sprawled out, twitching helplessly, William’s folded on either side of Mitch as he finally reached the base of Mitch’s cock, letting out a small gasping breath as their bodies joined completely. They stayed like that for a long moment, staring at each other, Mitch’s grip still tight on William’s waist, one of William’s hands resting on the bed next to Mitch’s torso as the other raised up to run through his own hair, pushing the sweaty locks away from his face. The flush that had crept across Mitch’s face as William had teased him with slow kisses had crept its way entirely down his chest, redness visible even under the darkness of his mid-summer tan. Eventually, both of their breaths slowed down to something approaching normal and William finally decided it was time for him to move, hands travelling from the sheets, up Mitch’s sides, and coming to rest on his chest. He used the leverage of his hands braced on Mitch, the power in his own thighs, to slowly raise himself up. His hole clung to Mitch’s cock, reluctant to give up the hot length of it, pink and slick with lube. As predicted it was wet, too wet, the sounds of it loud in the complete silence of the room. It was filthy in the best possible way, William dripping he reached the peak of his upwards movement, Mitch’s cock just barely still held inside of him. When he began to move back down, it was just as slow, just as deliberate, though Kyle knew from both experience and the tremble visible in William’s thighs that it wouldn’t last long. That the strain and want would take William over, that he wouldn’t be able to resist chasing his own pleasure as hard and fast as he liked. For now though, he set a steady pace, up and down and up and down until Mitch was gasping beneath him. 

“Fuck, Willy. Please,” he gasped out, and William nodded immediately, quickly, as if that had been a sentence that had meant anything, that had somehow had a clear command buried in the words. And maybe it did, because William sped up, making Mitch’s eyes slam shut with pleasure. He raised his legs from their helpless sprawl, planting his heels in the mattress and began shoving himself upwards, meeting William thrust for thrust, both of them working together now, in tandem. They were chasing pleasure: their own, each other’s, even Kyle’s with his voyeuristic urge. Watching them together like this never failed to steal Kyle’s breath away, and he only realized that he’d been twisting his hands together when he let go to rub one over his mouth and chin. He shifted in his seat, still uncomfortably hard, still unwilling to allow himself the distraction of his own cheap pleasure. Not when there was a dance playing out in front of him, a ballet worthy of the grandest theatres in Europe, sex so beautiful it felt like art. Kyle both wanted to show them to the world, show everyone what prizes he’d won, rub their faces in it, that this was _his_ and would never be theirs… and to secret them away forever, never letting William fall again into the clutches of those high society hags, never let any of those covetous old men even know that Mitch existed. 

William was bouncing in Mitch’s lap, faster and faster, his grip shifting to Mitch’s shoulders, holding on as Mitch thrust up into him just as hard and fast as William was moving his hips down, bringing them together with a wet noise that made Kyle want to shove his tongue in between and taste them together. William was letting out little, hitching noises, sounding almost hurt, his eyes squeezed tightly shut as he abandoned any pretense of finesse in favour of moving faster and faster on Mitch’s cock, chasing his own pleasure more than Mitch’s. Mitch didn’t seem to mind though, if the look he was giving William was anything to go by – biting his lip and staring up at the other man. All he could do was hold on to William’s waist and try to match William’s pace as they moved together, Mitch’s cock filling William’s swollen hole again and again. They were both flushed all over, slick with sweat and lube and spit; filthy and beautiful. Kyle thought he could close his eyes and still know that they were both so, so close to finally tipping over that final precipice, William’s whimpering exhales, Mitch’s throaty sounds of exertion as familiar to him as their actual voices. He didn’t though, kept his eyes locked on them as they moved together, more and more frantic until William finally cried out first, his cum streaking white up the planes of Mitch’s chest. His body almost went limp atop of him, swaying in a way that said that he was thinking about it, before he managed to pull himself together enough to fuck himself back down on Mitch again and again until the only noises leaking from his mouth were the little stuttering whimpers revelaing just how overstimulated he was. He kept it up though, powered through his own body’s obvious desire to just lay down. Kyle watched as Mitch shoved inside him again and again, face squeezed shut in its own desperation. 

“Come on Mitch,” Kyle finally said. “Cum inside him, fill him up.” Like a switch being flicked, Mitch gasped, then groaned as his hips stuttered upwards a final two, three thrusts before he finally stilled, sinking back down to the bed. His legs sprawled out once more, and William took that as permission to collapse forward, arms winding around Mitch, a satisfied expression on his face as he rubbed his cheek against Mitch’s collarbone. Mitch’s still-softening cock was still holding William open, keeping his hole on full display for Kyle, a fair reward for the loss of the sight of the cum pooling on Mitch’s chest. Kyle wondered if William had even thought about the fact that collapsing on Mitch like he had now meant his own chest and stomach would be covered in his own cum – he imagined not. Couldn’t imagine either man had many brain cells to spare for anything at the moment. He smiled, shifted in his seat slightly, and was abruptly reminded of just how hard he was. He glanced back up to see that both Mitch and William had opened their eyes, their faces turned to him, staring at him. Kyle blinked at them. Their expressions were blank, tired, but with a darkness lingering around the edges that had him leaning back and spreading his legs, showing off. Mitch turned his head, whispered something to William, who kept his eyes on Kyle so that Kyle got to see the smile light up his eyes and curl his lips at the same time; a small, wicked thing, full of promise. With a slight wince, William pushed himself up off of Mitch, letting out a small, hurt noise when Mitch’s cock finally slipped free of his body. Still, he climbed off the bed after Mitch, both of them walking over to Kyle. The contrast between them – Kyle, fully clothed and William and Mitch, naked and covered in cum – was as hot as it always was, always one of Kyle’s favourite things to play with. Something about both options so powerful, but in such starkly different ways. Seduced and seducer; controlled and wild. His eyes tracked Mitch’s cum as it ran down William’s thigh, and let his hunger show on his face when he looked back up at the other men. Both of them extended a hand towards him, matching wicked smiles on their faces. 

“C’mon Kyle,” Mitch said, and Kyle took their hands, let them pull him up and guide him towards the bed. 

He ended up in the middle of the bed, still fully dressed with both of them kneeling on either side of his hips, looking at him. They both looked truly debauched, all swollen lips and tangled, sweat-dampened hair, covered in streaks of cum and still flushed pink with exertion. Kyle fought against his own instinct to take control, to tell them what to do. They clearly had a plan in mind, and far be it from him to get in their way – though he craved the control, loved and savoured it, he was just as excited to find out what they had come up with, to see what they would do with him, given the chance. So he put his hands behind his head, and waited. Mitch’s eyes widened, and he glanced at William, who smiled at Kyle before turning towards Mitch. He raised a hand, cupping Mitch’s jaw and drawing him in for a kiss. It was hot and filthy and went on for far too long for how hard Kyle was, how long he’d already spent just watching them. He once again tamped down on the urge to interrupt, though by the smug look William shot him when they finally broke apart, he had managed to give his impatience away somehow. Or maybe William just knew him that well. Either way, Kyle let out a long, slow breath when deft fingers finally reached towards his belt. William made quick work of the piece of leather, throwing it off to the side as Mitch’s fingers slid in to unbutton the slacks and take down the zipper. William took hold of the top of the slacks, hooking his fingers to catch Kyle’s briefs as well as he began to pull them off. Kyle lifted his hips off the bed to make it easier, and then suddenly his cock was free. He couldn’t help the small gasp he let out at the feeling of relief that washed through him, arousal rising hot and heavy. William took ahold of his cock, long slender fingers wrapping around him and beginning to stroke as he drew Mitch into another kiss. Kyle lay there and watched as they kissed and kissed, the steady pressure of William’s hand on his cock sending little fissions of pleasure through him – still not enough, but enough for now, with the sight of the two men’s tongues pressing against each other right in front of him. 

Finally, they separated, and like they had discussed it beforehand they somehow managed to move as one, William ducking down to take Kyle’s cock into his mouth as Mitch sprawled down onto the bed next to Kyle. He followed Kyle’s gaze to where William was licking at the head of Kyle’s cock. It was a sight well worth paying attention to, William’s lips pink and slick with spit as he ran his tongue around the head, circling and circling before finally opening his mouth and sliding down, hand wrapped around the base holding it steady as he began to bob up and down. His eyes slid to the side, met Kyle’s, and there was something shining in the depth of them that let Kyle know that William knew exactly what kind of an effect the sight of him with Kyle’s cock in his mouth was doing to his husband. There was a touch on Kyle’s chin, a slightly pressure turning his head until he was finally meeting Mitch’s eyes. Mitch stared at him for a long moment, like he was searching for something, like there was still some mystery to Kyle that he had yet to unwrap. When he finally leaned in to kiss Kyle, Kyle still didn’t know if he’d found it or not. He opened up for Mitch either way, letting the other man lick into his mouth, soft and gentle for all that it was wet and more than a little bit messy. The combined feelings of William sucking his cock and Mitch’s tongue sliding past his teeth were bordering on overwhelming, dueling for his attention. He wasn’t going to last long, not as on edge as he was from watching William and Mitch fuck, not with the perfect wet heat of William’s mouth surrounding him. Kyle didn’t bother to fight it, embraced how quickly pleasure was building within him, sparking across his body, jumping from nerve to nerve as the other two men worked in tandem. He only realized his hips were hitching upwards when William’s arm landed across his waist, not that it made a difference when his husband immediately sank down of his own volition, taking Kyle down all the way to the base and making him gasp into Mitch’s mouth. 

“William,” he said, plea and warning both. William, predictably, just sucked harder, pleasure stinging through Kyle’s body at the sudden increase in pressure. Mitch’s mouth on his stopped him from saying anything more, and he gave up, gave in to the other two men, let them do what they wanted with his body. It was both too much and not enough, Mitch’s hand stroking the side of his face as he kissed him, William’s hand and mouth now working him together, everything wet and sticky. When it finally came, his orgasm caught him by surprise, making him bite Mitch’s lip as his hips fought against the weight of William’s arm. William kept him there, sucking until Kyle finally pulled away from where his tongue was attempting to sooth the bruise he was sure he’d left on Mitch’s lip. His husband’s name was far breathier this time, and William pulled off of his cock with a satisfied smile already curving his lips. 

“Yes darling?” he said, but he was already crawling his way up the bed, collapsing onto the mattress next to Kyle and immediately cuddling into his side. Mitch mimicked him on the other side, leaving Kyle unexpectedly, but not unwelcomingly, trapped between the two of them. William hummed in contentment. 

“I love you,” he said, eyes closed and probably already half asleep, still covered in spit and sweat and lube and cum. Kyle didn’t know which of them he was talking to, maybe both of them. 

“I love you,” Mitch said from Kyle’s other side, and when Kyle turned to him, he saw that he wasn’t looking at William, but Kyle. Kyle blinked at him, something in his chest clenching, making his breath stutter in his lungs, desperate and wild. 

“We’re all disgusting,” he said, not looking away from Mitch. Mitch’s eyes searched his face for a long minute before he finally smiled, something small and secret and so full of happiness that it hurt to look at it. 

“Shut up and have a nap,” he said, laying down and tucking his head against Kyle as well. Kyle stared up at the dark ceiling above the bed for a long moment, before he finally allowed his eyes to close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH MY GOD IT IS DONE!!! Thank you to everyone who stuck it out until the very end, and for your patience when I straight up ghosted on y'all for months at a time. This fic literally quadrupled in length and story from where I expected it to go, but I'm so happy it ended up where it did. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it, and as always if you want to hang out on twitter you can hmu @thotlander.


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